316 FRENCH ARMY VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
enough of botany and materia medica properly to draw up and 
class those reports which are required of him in the 80th article? 
We will grant that he is perfectly acquainted with all that belongs- 
to the breaking and training of young horses, and the instruction 
of the men in the art of riding ; but is he not obliged to resort to 
the veterinary surgeon to complete these reports, and the most 
valuable parts of them, and which, being presented in his name, 
gain him esteem and honour, while the real author is neglected 
and unknown ? 
The 80th article, it is true, gives him the veterinary surgeon for 
^n assistant; but it is the veterinarian alone who ought to ‘^class’’ 
the young horses, and according to their diseases assign to them 
their proper diet. The duties of the riding-master are, the train¬ 
ing of the riding horse, the ordering of the manoeuvres, and the 
superintendence of the bitting and harnessing. 
This, M. le Marechal, is not a gratuitous supposition : question 
any of these gentlemen; I call upon them by their loyalty as 
French officers. Very small is the number of those who have 
never had recourse to the knowledge of the veterinary surgeon; 
and still fewer those who will not freely render them justice, in 
acknowledging that they are not in their proper situation. 
The first paragraph of the 83d article contains an absolute 
Contradiction. It says, that the riding-master shall be responsi¬ 
ble for the direction of the infirmary, both as regards the treat¬ 
ment of the horses and the employment of the medicines, but 
without, in any way, interfering with the details of the veterinary 
art. 
How can the riding-master direct what medicines are to be 
used without intermeddling with the details of the art ? 
The fourth paragraph of the same article is equally as impos¬ 
sible punctually to execute. To no one is given the power of 
preventing or foreseeing the progress of organic disease, and 
tracing its march. The veterinary surgeon cannot, therefore, in any 
case, conscientiously give the riding-master a programme of the 
treatment, which he may, perhaps, deem it right to change every 
day or every hour. This truth is so much felt, that I know that 
the riding-masters scarcely ever require this from the veterinarian. 
And even if its execution was perfectly easy, of what good is this 
programme, which the veterinary surgeon sketches as he pleases, 
and places what he likes in it, and of which the riding-master 
cannot be a judge? How does this humiliating system of sur¬ 
veillance accord with the declaration of the 83d article, which 
forbids the power of control over any thing relative to the details 
of the art ? 
Could not the account of the progress which the horses make, 
