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them counsel and advice upon matters of the highest importance 
to them as individuals, and in many respects affecting material 
public interests. From their proper or improper diagnosis of 
disease, its presence is to be detected in time for its suppression, 
or communities lulled into a sense of false security until it well- 
nigh escapes control and involves thousands of dollars in money. 
These men are to say disease exists when it does not exist, and 
keep the country convulsed with alarm, or they are to deny its 
existence until it is spread far and wide. It seems to me the 
attainments of these men and their qualifications to practice this 
high profession involve questions and consequences of such im¬ 
portance that the public authorities should exercise some super¬ 
vision over them. The “ boss doctors ” at the country cross-roads, 
whom everybody knew to have no professional training, and who 
made no pretense of'being graduates of any school higher than 
a blacksmith shop or a livery stable, were bad enough, but a 
horde of quacks, having no more theoretical knowledge and a 
great deal less of the practical, backed up by college diplomas, 
would be a great deal worse ; and it seems to me the authorities 
should protect the people from this form of quackery, and see 
that those who hold themselves out as veterinary surgeons are so 
in point of fact, and not merely by virture of a piece of pur¬ 
chased paper. The country cares very little for %he opinion 
signed by “John Jones, blacksmith,” as to whether an ailing ani¬ 
mal is suffering from the itch or pleuro-pneumonia, because it 
knows that under no circumstances can he with certainty distin¬ 
guish the one from the other. But when the report goes abroad 
signed by “ John Jones, Y.S., D.V.M.,” and perhaps half the 
balance of the alphabet, it may have a very serious and far dif 
ferent significance. 
I write in this vein because I have every reason to believe that all 
the institutions which assume to graduate veterinarians are not 
equipped or intended to give the country bona-fide professional 
men competent to practice this profession. If I were a veterin¬ 
arian myself, so that I could be exactly sure of my ground, I 
should feel like indulging in plainer talk about some of these 
institutions; but as I can only regard the question from the 
