Devonshire's East Devon magazine September October 2018

The Old Vet’nary
by Ken Watson
College Days
There is, or used to be, a station
on London Underground called
Camden Town which I came to
know extremely well. For 4½
years I would alight there five,
sometimes six days a week. I
would cross the road and walk
down College Road until I reached
an ugly brick building. This was
the Royal Veterinary College
whose spartan exterior was
home to some of the luckiest
students in the country. It may
not have seemed so at the time,
but looking back I realise that we
were inundated with so much
information and facts that if we
stayed the course and passed
the frequent exams, we emerged
very much older and with an
encyclopaedic knowledge of the
Horse, Cow, Sheep, Dog, Cat and
Chicken. Then we were permitted
to spend a final year of practical,
clinical and surgical teaching at
the Field Station at Streatley-On-
Thames.
Having walked the bleak length of
College Road, whose pavements
were covered in wind swept waves
of ash from the many factory
chimneys, I was daily rewarded
by the warmth, friendliness, and
sense of purpose of the college.
At that time it was self-governing
and even set its own exam papers
and vivas for the many exams
which came at you like the hurdles
in a steeplechase. Fail one and you
stayed back to take it again so that
some took as much as eight years
to pass the basic five year course.
This was better than school, for
you could see a purpose, a reason,
in every fact you learned. The first
text book was “Animal Husbandry”,
by a vet named Kirk, which solved
the mystery of all the harness of
the horse or perhaps how to down
a cow using only a rope, according
to a man named Reuff. A veritable
bible. Even Chemistry became
Biochemistry and encompassed
Forensic Chemistry taught by the
leading Forensic Chemist in the
country. But the main subject was
the two year course on Anatomy
with the great Professor McCunn.
Two years to learn to identify every
single bone, muscle, blood vessel
and nerve in the five species.
About three afternoons a week
were spent in the vast anatomy
hall. Each student was allotted
a pony cadaver for dissection
and these were kept in tanks of
formaldehyde, so that on entering
the hall your throat was gripped
by the fumes, but this was the
least of your worries. I recall only
two traditions at the college;
one was that you did not clap to
'Wilson'
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show approval, you stamped your
feet. The other was that people
at one end of the anatomy hall
surreptitiously hurled pieces of
meat at those at the other end,
so it paid to keep your head down.
Further years took us through
Histology, Pathology, Bacteriology
and Pharmacy, where we met
a wonderful eccentric array of
characters who lectured us, and
by Richard Woodward
we received good value. Most
of us were ex-service and found
it harder to retain facts than the
ex-schoolboys; but lecturers such
as Prof. Greatorex who taught the
diseases of the horse, a Mr.Daykin
on pharmacy, rose above subjects
which could have been boring. For
sheer showmanship you could not
beat Prof. Amoroso who started
his lecture on Physiology as he
walked in the door and finished as
he walked out. He was famous for
wearing two pairs of spectacles,
one perched precariously over the
other. His lecture on the placentas
of the five species remains with
me today. But once we had
mastered all these background,
yet essential, subjects and passed
the relevant exams, maybe at the
second or even third attempt,
we were welcomed to the final,
clinical, year where it all came
together.
This was held at the field station at
Streatley-On-Thames, a beautiful
location and, two years married
by now, we bought an ancient
caravan from a previous student
and I settled down to master
Clinical Medicine and Surgery. This
caravan was sited in the grounds
of a local pub, but as we did not
patronise said pub, no money,
and I mean literally no money, we
were asked to move our caravan.
continued on page 98...
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