The people who know, or pretend to know, anything about the diseases of horses, may be divided into three classes : -

Owners and their stablemen form one class. They stand at the bottom of the list, having just sufficient knowledge to prove they have any; that little varies; but in general it goes no further than to name a few common drugs, and a few common diseases. They know that aloes and resin are two different things; they can tell when a horse has broken wind, when he is a roarer, when a crib-biter, when he is lame, and when he is sick. Some can bleed, give a ball, and put in a rowel. Though they can tell when a horse is ill, yet they can not tell what ails him, unless it be some common affair, such as the influenza, which they may see often. They know when a horse is lame; but they are not very often able to discover where. When they blame the shoulder, it is very likely to be the foot. They can perform a few simple operations, among which bleeding and balling stand foremost; but few can perform these well, simple as they are, and many bungle them most wretchedly. In truth, they know so little, that they can not be depended on. They are just as likely to be wrong as right. But, notwithstanding this, it must be allowed that they know something, although they can not be said to know anything well.

They confound one thing with another, like it, but not the same; grease, for instance, with farcy; a common cold with glanders; swelled leg with a sprain; foot lameness with shoulder lameness; and so forth in a hundred other things.

Horse-shoers and village blacksmiths form another class. Some have seen medicines, diseases, and operations, while in the service of a veterinarian, and some have learned a little about them merely by reading books and being consulted by the owner or his groom. Those bred in the country know less than an old stableman; those who have been in the employment of a veterinarian, sometimes know more. The little they learn is learned very slowly, and always imperfectly; but in time, some of them get a name, and subsequently a good deal to do, which teaches them more or less. Their knowledge, at best, resembles that of a nurse employed in an hospital, or about sick persons. Being ignorant of anatomy and physiology, they never improve beyond a certain point, and there are hundreds of things which they can not comprehend nor manage. Operations which require cutting they rarely try, and still more rarely perform as they ought to be performed. Most of them have a few books, of which the bad mislead them, and the good puzzle them.

All boast of practical experience, by which they mean they have seen a great deal. In all ranks, there are men who raise mighty pretensions upon a very slender foundation. Give them a telescope view of the moon, and they instantly become astronomers show them a few experiments, and they are converted into chymists; when they have seen a skeleton they have studied anatomy; when they have opened an abscess, or drawn blood, they are good surgeons, having performed many dangerous and difficult operations with great success. To such people is the world indebted for all kinds of quackery, and a good deal of knavery. Their practical experience is but a shadow; their opinion a guess; their performance a failure; and their pretensions to skill, what are they, but the assumptions of ignorance, or the disguises of imposition 1

The blacksmith and shoer usually term themselves farriers; but in most all large towns there are some who take the title of veterinary surgeons, a kind of fraud for which the law has provided no remedy.

Veterinary surgeons form a third, and the only legitimate class of medical attendants on the horse. The term veterinarian came into use when colleges were established in different parts of Europe for improving, or rather for creating the art of treating disease in the lower animals. France founded in 1761 the first school of this kind. There were none in this country till thirty years afterward. At present there are two at London and one at Edinburgh. In each of these schools, the structure and diseases of domestic animals are taught from observations and study of the dead and of the living. The kind of instruction is not quite the same at each school; but in all, the students have opportunities, many or more, of examining every part of the frame, both in health and in disease, and of watching and treating patients of almost every kind. In one winter, an industrious student will see as much at these places as the people who boast of great experience will see in the whole course of their lives; and then everything is seen in the right way, the inside as well as the outside. After attending a stated period, the pupils are brought before a Board of Examiners, who ascertain their qualification.

If fit to practise, they obtain a certificate, which is termed a diploma; if not, they are referred to a longer course of study. No one who wants a diploma is a veterinary surgeon. A pretender may assume the name, and among an ignorant people he may carry on the imposition pretty well, and for a good while; but the day seems to be coming when quackery must expire. The man of education now disdains the proffered services of an empiric for himself, and, erelong, he will take care that his horse or his dog shall not be added to the victims already sacrificed to ignorance.