226 THE FRENCH ARMY VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
difficult and scientific operations — after a long series of honourable 
services in the class of subalterns, to wish to attain at last to the 
rank of the least elevated of the officers of the regiment? 
There are not in the regiments, if I am not mistaken, more 
than two classes of men to whom it is forbidden to go beyond 
the rank of inferior officers. 
It has been asked whether it is not to be feared that if they 
elevate the position of the veterinary surgeons too much they will 
become too proud and disdain to perform their duty ? In the 
first place, what is this high rank from which they would be 
obliged to descend in order to perform any of the operations that 
may be occasionally required? The professors — the directors of 
the royal veterinary schools, are they not in a position compara- 
tively much more elevated than that of a sub-lieutenant ? Never- 
theless, not a day passes in which they do not employ themselves, 
without any fancied degradation, in operations of every kind 
that can occur in the practice of veterinary surgery. Every day 
some of the veterinary surgeons established in Paris, who are 
members of the Royal Academy of Medicine, personally attend 
to all the minutise of their profession. At the academy itself, not 
one thinks that his dignity is compromised. M. Barthelemy did 
not for a single day cease to attend to the circumstances of every 
patient during the year that he presided at this learned assembly, 
and no one thought, whatever might be the operation, that he 
degraded the high situation in which he found himself placed. 
There is a fact, which for many reasons should now be brought 
forward with regard to the veterinary surgeons of our regiments, 
namely, the rank that is occupied by men in most of the foreign 
armies, to whom are intrusted the care of the health, and the 
general treatment of the cavalry horses. The statement that I 
am about to make results from official documents which I have 
procured within the last four years from the directors of the prin- 
cipal schools of Europe. 
1st. In England every veterinary surgeon, on arriving at the 
regiment, has the rank of cornet (sub-lieutenant). 
After two years service he attains the rank of lieutenant, which 
is the highest that he can attain. 
Pupils are admitted to the Veterinary College at London with- 
out previous examination, and two years of study are required 
before they can obtain their diploma. 
2d. In Holland, the second veterinary surgeon has the rank 
of sub- lieutenant. 
The first veterinary surgeon preserves the same rank. 
3d. In Belgium, the first veterinary surgeon has the rank of 
lieutenant, and the second that of sub-lieutenant. 
