[BILL 121.] SECOND READING. (Hansard, 9 May 1866)

§ MR. HOLLAND,
in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, that its object was to prohibit any person from calling himself a veterinary surgeon who had not passed an examination at the Royal Veterinary College and obtained a diploma from that institution. There were at present 1,244 persons practising as veterinary surgeons under the assumption that they had obtained diplomas. There were 1,189, farriers who were acting as such who had no diplomas. Altogether there were 2,433 persons practising without any diploma against 1,144 regularly qualified practitioners. It was essential that an improved status should be given to veterinary surgeons, and he felt that a simple Bill requiring that every veterinary surgeon should be bonâfide a member of the Royal College 655 of Veterinary Surgeons would be of great value at the present time. He proposed that any person who fraudulently held out to the public that he was a veterinary surgeon should be liable on summary conviction to a penalty of not exceeding ã5 and not less than ã2. The Bill, however, was not to affect persons who should have assumed the title six months previous to its passing.

§ SIR JERVOISE JERVOISE
said, he was at a loss to understand why a man should be prevented from assuming the title of veterinary surgeon. He suggested that when in Committee some alteration should be made in its provisions, to make them apply to those who held themselves out as members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

§ MR. NEWDEGATE
said, he believed this Bill was valuable as a means of promoting the education of the veterinary profession. He had been many years one of the Governors of the Royal Veterinary College, which was the principal school of the profession, and he could assure the House that great exertions had been made by the College to raise the scale of education in veterinary science. No obstacle had interposed more constantly, or tended more directly to defeat this attempt than the fact that the education after it was completed brought with it no distinction, so that the uneducated as well as the educated appeared before the public with equal claims so far as appearances were concerned, as many as chose, however unqualified, adopting the denomination of veterinary surgeons. During the recent visitation of the cattle plague, veterinary surgeons had been placed in a difficult position. They had had to treat a disease which was practically novel in this country—for this disease had not appeared in this country for one hundred years. The Royal Veterinary College was informed of the nature of the disease from the reports of Professors Simondsand Spooner, the former of whom had made inquiries on the Continent, not only last year, but the year before that, and they had done everything in their power to prepare the profession for the dangers they had to encounter, and also to warn the public. But the profession was in this position, they were bound not to discourage any attempt to find a remedy. 656 Although they knew that abroad no remedy had been found effectual, the public were loath to believe that the disease was incurable. This incredulity was very dangerous, and the more embarrassing, since the only method of dispelling it was to allow every experiment a trial, while the disease was rapidly spreading by contagion. The College, therefore, with the government of which the Speaker and he had for years been connected, promoted as far as they could every reasonable experiment. He was sorry to say that those attempts had not been successful; from the novelty and the nature of the disease mistakes had inevitably arisen; yet there could be no doubt that veterinary surgeons had been of great and general service to the country, since they had informed themselves of the symptoms of the disease as quickly as could be expected, and had thus contributed to the earlier adoption of those preventive measures which the Legislature had adopted. Everything connected with the visitation of the cattle plague had proved the necessity for increased information and improved veterinary capacity. Believing that one principal means of rendering these available to the country was to distinguish the possession of these in the person of those who had acquired them by education, he (Mr. Newdegate) trusted that the Bill before the House would pass.

MR. H. A. BRUCE
said, it was not his intention to oppose this stage of the Bill, but it would be necessary to make some amendments in it in Committee. He thought the Bill went too far in declaring that any one who called himself a veterinary surgeon without having the diploma of the Veterinary College should be amenable to the law. If, however, he assumed that he was a member of a College when he was not, that might render such a person liable to penalties. In the case of the chemists and druggists and the pharmaceutical chemists, it was made an offence to assume the name of pharmaceutical chemist, and if with regard to veterinary surgeons they added something to the title, such as Royal College, &c, it might form a reasonable proposition that for the infringement of the title the person so offending should be liable to a penalty. He did not, however, think that the state of veterinary science was sufficiently advanced to entitle the members of the College to a monopoly of the practice, especially as it had been proved that diplomas had been given to men whose knowledge of their 657 profession did not entitle them to that distinction. Subject to those observations, he did not, on the part of the Government, object to the second reading of the Bill,