318 
FRENCH ARMY VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
nary farrier; if there be three, the third shall be called the super¬ 
numerary veterinary farrier,” 
This article might falsely induce the belief that until then 
veterinary surgeons were not legally attached to the regiments; 
that they had no rank, no resemblance of rank; and that they 
were only called in from imperious necessity, which frequently sub¬ 
stituted for them the soldiers or farriers without instruction, and 
who, in performing their functions, invaded their rights, and 
were thus tacitly recognized by the promulgation of this decree. 
This opinion is still more strengthened by reading the third para¬ 
graph of the 43d Article, which is as follows :— In default of 
supernumerary veterinary surgeons, the regiments are authorized 
to choose, in order to supply their place, one or tico quarter-mas¬ 
ters, brigadiers, soldiers, or farriers: when they are employed as 
veterinary surgeons, they shall receive pay and rank immediately 
below the veterinary surgeon.” 
Thus, when the regiment was at a distance, and their urgentneed 
did not allow them time to send to the veterinary schools, these 
soldiers perform functions which are but indefinitely named, and 
tliere might be as many as six of them in some regiments. The 
decree which confirms them in their employment by these words, 
'‘those who are chosen,” &:c., sufficiently recompenses their merit 
in placing them upon an equal rank with the assistant quarter¬ 
master ; but the rank which is accorded to them cannot be the re¬ 
ward of their medical knowledge, or of their military proficiency. 
But now', when all the regimental veterinary surgeons come 
from some veterinary school, where they have pursued an exten¬ 
sive and varied course of study, have they not a right to claim, 
as the rew'ard of an education which has unfolded to their view 
all the magnificent scenes of natural history, that recompense 
which is granted to the pupils of every other establishment who 
join the army; especially when this reward is demanded in the 
hope of being useful to their country, and of honouring it still 
more, by converting the required rank into the means of enlarg¬ 
ing the dominion of that science into whose beauties they are 
initiated? 
As to the articles regulating the veterinary service, and which 
are found from numbers 355 to 360 inclusive, they are indispen¬ 
sable to the sanitary service of the horse, and are placed in the 
chapter entitled, ^‘The Duties and Attributes of the Riding Mas¬ 
ter,” and they relate only to that part of the service w'hich de¬ 
volves on him who bears the title of veterinary surgeon to the re¬ 
giment.” 
M. Vogeli afterwards goes on to prove that this usurpation of 
powder in the riding-master is of no long date. He traces it to 
