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11. As regards members of the staff, His Excellency Lord Reay was good
enough to honour the Principal by appointing him a Justice of the Peace.
Dr. Nariman, the Resident Veterinary Officer, has efficiently performed his duties
as Assistant Professor and one of the Clinical Officers of the hospital. He has
exercised administrative supervision of both College and hospital during occa-
sional brief absences of the Principal. The Lecturers have, in accordance with
Government Resolution, Revenue Department, No. 9422, dated 14th December
1889, reverted to their medical duties. Government decided that the teachers
in a Veterinary College should be Veterinary Graduates, connected with the
institution and experts in the veterinary art, rather than human doctors who
are merely amateur veterinarians.
The Assistant Surgeons, Engineer and Sukhia, who thus reverted, had
shown themselves intelligent and able as Lecturers. Mr. Engineer this year
did good service in organizing our laboratory. Two Graduates who were first
and second on the pass list of 1889 have been appointed Instructors, in due
course to become Lecturers, and, later on, Assistant Professors. Their promotion
and increase of pay will depend on efficiency in performance of duties, on exami-
nation in their special subjects, and on length of service. I look forward with
confidence to these young men becoming good and efficient officers of Govern-
ment and specialists in their respective spheres of work. The scheme of
reorganization which Government, on the strong recommendation of the College
Committee, approved also admits the appointment of two junior Graduates in
temporary posts as Assistant Veterinary Officers. Good men ought to be pro-
curable for these duties, which should prove a kind of Post-Graduate course for
them and secure to a number of men a longer period than the ordinary of col-
legiate instruction.
Farrier Major and Instructor in Practical Shoeing Stanley suffered
severely from disease throughout the year ; he struggled pluckily against it, but
finally has been compelled to send in his resignation, as the Parel climate has
proved quite incompatible with his constitution. The remarkable unhealthiness
of the place we have to work in has been amply demonstrated by the prevalence
of the fever among the students and staff, severe liver disorder,—all but fatal—in
the case of myself and similar disease ultimately fatal in the case of Veterinary
Surgeon Pottinger, my locum tenens ; by severe disease incapacitating the Manager
of the Hospital, Mr. Bhikaji ; and by febrile disorder acquired by Mr. Shroff,
Secretary and Treasurer of the hospital, while resident on the premises. Recently
energetic efforts have been made to improve the drainage, remove undergrowth
from the compound, open it up by new roads, and otherwise lessen the stagnation
of the air. These measures will, I believe, prove successful. Mr. Pottinger's
death was a serious blow to the College, for in him we lost an experienced and
able member of the Board of Examiners whom we cannot easily replace.
I, this year, introduced a system of attendance record for teachers as well
as for students ; this was to counteract or record a suspected unpunctual or
irregular attendance by Lecturers.
The College Committee met twice, once at Bombay and once at Poona (see
Government Resolution, Revenue Department, No. 5670, dated 5th August
1889). This sufficed for completion of College work. The principal matters
dealt with were redistribution of minor subjects, regulations for free students,
redistribution of lectures.
12. Of the new buildings one of the most important is the Sir Dinshaw
Manokji Petit Patho-Bacteriological Laboratory. This is the outcome of the
liberality of the gentleman after whom it is named, and whose promotion to a
Baronetcy was appropriately announced by His Excellency Lord Reay when
laying the foundation-stone of the building. The objects of the laboratory
are :—
(1). The instruction of veterinary students in Pathological Anatomy
and Bacteriology.
(2). The increase in knowledge by original research on such diseases
of animals as specially occur in India, such as bursati, kumree, surra.
B 387—3