Royal Veterinary College, London : inauguration of the winter session, 1897-98.

  • Royal Veterinary College (London, England)
Date:
[1897]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Royal Veterinary College, London : inauguration of the winter session, 1897-98. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    “Much has been done by the veterinary profession within the last few years, much more still remains to be done. The students who now enter here will have to bear the heat and burden of the day, for it will be their duty to aid that advance, and to raise veterinary science to a still higher position. I not only welcome you therefore, but I wish you all good fortune in the career upon which you are now entering. Be sober, be honest, strive to be gentle- men in thought as well as in deed. Since I first came amongst you as a teacher, only seven years ago, you have made enormous advances. You work harder, you write much better papers, you are more attentive to what is told you, and therefore you go to your examinations much better prepared. But there is still great room for improvement. You want a higher standard of general knowledge. You must trust more to your own work. You must think for yourselves more, and have a less abiding faith in ‘cram.’ Mere ‘ cram,’ leading to a semblance of knowledge, wont help you. Steady work for even a short time daily throughout each session is of far greater avail than feverish all-night sittings beginning a fortnight before the examinations. “Then when you have obtained your diplomas, try so to conduct yourselves as to become the friend and trusted adviser of your clients. Make them look up to you as to men who hold their position by virtue of real knowledge. Try to be*above your clients rather than below them or upon an equality with them. Do not become a mere cattle doctor, but remain as you began a veterinary surgeon. Individual exceptions there must be in every profession, but let these exceptions be of the lower type, and let the rank and file of the veterinary profession show themselves constantly in favour of progress, both in science and in social position. Do not think that your own efforts are useless, or that it cannot matter what example you set. Some of my best friends in the country I am glad to reckon amongst the farmers and stock- owners, and when I visit them I often ask about the veterinary surgeons in the neighbourhood. Formerly I only received a frank confession of ignorance or a doubtful shake of the head; now more often than not I am told he is an excellent useful fellow, and that my friends often call him in, whereas in the more benighted parts of the country they either employed the white witch, or they trusted to the knowledge which had become traditional in their family, and which was often hardly distinguishable from witchcraft. “And now let me come to the real subject of my address to-day, the debt that human medicine in all its branches owes to veterinary science. The debt is surely a great one and if we take the subjects in the order in which they are taught in the College, we shall find that our founder had a share in beginning it. “ Charles Sainbel taught human anatomy a lesson, and at the same time established his own reputation in England, when he published his essay on the proportions of Eclipse, the great race horse belonging to Mr O’Kelly, who died 27th February 1789, and was never beaten. rJ he essay is still in advance of its time, for it shows how animal mechanics can be expressed in geometrical terms, and it would be interesting to apply Sainbel’s methods to the individual record breakers, who are now so numerous amongst us in the world of athletics. The observations of veterinary anatomists, too, explain many obscure points in connection with the development and anatomy of man, especially in those aberrant conditions which are found to a greater or less degree in every body which is carefully dissected. “The debt of human physiology to veterinary physiology is well recognised. In modern times, and in this country, it dates from the day when Archdeacon Hales, in 1732, introduced a long tube into the femoral artery of a horse, and noted the height to which the blood rose in it. The importance of breeding has led our veterinary surgeons to a most careful observation of the generative functions in animals, and has thus enriched physiology with many facts of