OBSERVATIONS ON INJURIES, ETC., AMONG ARMY HORSES. 271 
The few observations, cursory and commonplace as they are, 
that we have been led to make, include the daily experiences 
of three years only. Our tone throughout may be tinged 
with complaint, and our complaints probably suggest a posi- 
tion of helplessness. It is so natural to growl, that nobody 
will feel surprised, though our serenity is not ruffled without 
cause. So much of our profession is in our own hands, and 
no more ; the remainder is dealt out, handed over, or allowed, 
but we claim no right to the reserve. Things are, however, 
changing for the better in this country. A professional head 
has had a good effect. There was a time when we saw fit to 
shoe two horses in a special manner, but we erred because we 
had provided for the demands of special casds ; the next 
morning the shoes were removed, and the horses shod accord- 
ing to custom, and not to common sense. Now “ veterinary 
surgeons will exercise their own judgment as to the proper 
mode of shoeing to be used in exceptional cases.” This had 
to be enforced by a General Order. 
Our representations are often unavailing in removing re - 
movable causes that operate periodically somewhere or other, 
yet the Queen’s Regulations say, “ A very important point 
of duty is to prevent disease by reference to predisposing 
causes, and by the adoption of preventive measures.” 
Duty does endeavour to carry this into effect, but its influ- 
ence is neither ubiquitous nor omnipotent. We are often 
without the immediate means to render assistance to our 
suffering patients. Slings we do not possess, and there are 
no substitutes, because if Government supplies articles for 
one thing, they are not supposed to be used for anything 
else. If we required trephining instruments, we must send 
to the depot of medicine, &c., for them, 150 miles away ; the 
same process has to be gone through for getting other instru- 
ments, saying nothing about time wasted in sending other 
hundreds of miles for a countersignature. 
A civil veterinary surgeon would feel ashamed were he to 
operate with a gimblet or a brace-bit, in lieu of so cheap an 
instrument as a trephine. 
In performing tracheotomy a day or two ago, we did not 
mind employing a simple scalpel ; but we think it rather 
absurd to insert a tube into a horse’s trachea that is only fit 
for the human trachea. There was nothing to keep in the 
tube excepting the tapes, therefore every time the horse 
stretched his neck or extended his head, out came the tube. 
Suppose we tried to eradicate an evil which time and custom 
has established, we should be in danger of trespassing on a 
preserve known as “interior economy,” which seems to us 
