io8 THE HORSE AND THE WAR 



change for the patients. Everywhere, also, equipment is up to date and 

 scrupulously clean. 



As auxiliary help the Veterinary Service appreciates nothing more than 

 the work done for the State by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Crudt\' 

 to Animals. It is a fact, I believe, that this Societv has made grants up to 

 date totalling £100,000 to the cause of sick and wounded animals in war bv the 

 provision of hospital accommodation, horse ambulances and laiioratorx' 

 appliances. 



I have no impression of one hospital being better than another. Where all 

 are so good I should indeed be sorry to single out one for special praise, but I must 

 not omit to mention one close to the coast because of the clever and resource- 

 ful way in which an old brick- works, its sheds and its fields, covering an area 

 of about forty acres, have been adapted as a hospital. There I saw a surgeon 

 perform an operation for quittor, which is a form of sorosis of that portion of 

 the foot at the crown of the hoof. It is a very serious and frequent trouble, 

 especially with heavy horses, and the old-time operation usually left an unsightly 

 scar and growth with certain chronic lameness. The operation, introduced bv 

 French veterinaries many years ago, involves the cutting away of the cartilage 

 affected, and this can be done by making only a very slight incision, with a 

 consequent small scar when the wound has healed. The operation is proving 

 invaluable and causing a great saving in horses. This same hospital between 

 December, 1914, and December, 1917, had admitted 41,658 animals and had 

 discharged as cured 32,455. 



It is impossible to do more than touch very briefly on those other most 

 essential departments of the Veterinary Service in France. There are the 

 convalescent horse depots, created in close proximity to the hospitals which 

 issue to them those horses that need the exercise that freedom in kraals gives 

 them, good feeding and professional care prior to being passed on to remount 

 depots. These convalescent depots are wisely laid out on sand or sandy 

 soils, so that the strain of moving about in heavy mud is not imposed on the 

 convalescents. Then the Director has under his charge about 3,000 acres of fine 

 grassland in Normandy, and here tired and worn horses come to feed on the 

 green food of the spring and summer months and recover that strength and 

 confidence which are so essential to their future usefulness. Animals so turned 

 out receive a portion of their normal daily ration of oats and hay, but it will be 

 understood that, compared with the keep and maintenance of them in hospitals, 

 the cost is comparatively low and means a very considerable econom\-. 



I come now to touch on the important question of the disposal of those 

 animals considered unfit for further active service. The Veterinary Service is 

 the chief casting authority ; only on the score of age and unsuitability for any 

 specific job in the Army can Remount Authorities e.xercise the veto of casting. 

 And when it is remembered that a trifle over 20 per cent, of the horses admitted 

 to hospitals never return to active service, it will be understood that castings 

 are on a big scale. Do not for a moment imagine that this 20 per cent, repre- 

 sents dead loss. From {a) sales to farmers for work on the land ; (b) sales to 

 horse butchers for food ; and {c) reduction of carcases of any animals not suit- 

 able as food for by-products of skin, fat, bones, flesh, hoofs, etc., the average 



