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THE ARMY VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
“ Anna virumque cano.” 
The importance and respectability of the veterinary profession 
are in na small degree manifested and maintained by that part of 
it whose services are devoted to the army. 
Many years ago it became a question whether veterinary 
science was really, nationally considered, a serviceable acquisition 
or not; whether, as regarded the army, veterinary practitioners 
had been useful or useless adjuncts to regiments. The best reply 
that can be made to such a question, is to ask if there be any 
one (acquainted with the cavalry service) who would be bold 
enough to raise such a question at the present day. If any such 
person could be found, I should very much question his cavalry 
knowledge, and still more his pretensions to j udgment on vete 
rinary affairs. 
On the contrary, there is no appointment in a regiment of 
cavalry, the filling of which gives occasion for more scrupulous 
vigilance and inquiry to a colonel of experience, than that of vete¬ 
rinary surgeon; nor is there any officer in the regiment whose 
absence is more keenly felt than his: and hence arises the diffi¬ 
culty he at all times has of obtaining any long leave of absence. 
The numbers of horses in former days lost to the service from 
the spread, inveteracy, and malignancy of diseases, which, under 
proper and timely treatment, would all have admitted of cure or 
relief, is quite beyond my present estimation or even conception : 
grease, canker, glanders, farcy, moon-blindness, inflammation 
of the lungs, &c. See. yearly, nay monthly ! deprived regiments 
of many of their most valued horses; whereas, at the present day, 
grease and canker are never, or ought never, to be seen in a 
regiment; farcy and glanders but rarely; and inflammation of 
the lungs, though it in nature cannot be wholly prevented, 
yet is it much less frequent in its occurrence, and much oftener 
cured, when it does occur, than it used to be, prior to the ap¬ 
pointment of veterinary surgeons. 
So much for the service of a veterinary officer in the capacity 
of a medical practitioner: but there is yet another important 
office he performs, which is that of “ passing” horses into and 
out of the service. No horse can be purchased for the cavalry 
before lie is examined and ci passed” (by which is meant “ found 
free from unsoundness or unfitness”) by the veterinary surgeon ; 
nor can any horse, on the other hand, be sold out of the service 
unless he has been beforehand pronounced to be unsound or unfit 
