MINUTES OF EVIDENCE ON CANINE MADNESS. 
Have many persons been bitten in your neighbourhood lately ? 
—I have been obliged to operate on many. The other day i 
had a distressing case. The only son of a respectable man in 
the neighbourhood was walking with a nurse in the street: a dog 
came out in the most unprovoked manner, and bit the child on 
the eyelid. If I had cut through the eyelid in excising the 
part, I should have either disfigured the child for life, or, if I did 
not do it effectually, I should have left him open to the disease 
of hydrophobia. 1 afterw ards cauterized it as neatly as possible, 
and the child, up to the present time, has done well: this is 
about a month ago. 
When a person is brought to you who has been bitten by a 
dog, do you think it proper to have recourse to excision ?— 
There is no other ground of safety: it depends on the care with 
which the operation is performed, whether the life of the indi¬ 
vidual be saved. 
If a person be bitten, and you cannot find out the dog, would 
you, under those circumstances, not think it safe except to apply 
caustic and excision?—If I did not, I should not be doing my 
duty: there is no safety without excising the part, however 
friendly the appearance of the dog may be. A dog maybe in an 
incipient state of hydrophobia, and yet not manifest the disease. 
ARMY VETERINARY DEPARTMENT. 
DUTIES OF A REGIMENTAL VETERINARY SURGEON. 
No one who has shone in the ranks of Mars needs to be in¬ 
formed that there is a vast deal of “ leather and prunella” in the 
duty of a soldier, be his grade or office what it may. Perhaps, 
on a moderate computation, it may be averred that one half of his 
time is consumed in making an “ outside showwhile the re¬ 
maining half is found sufficient for the performance of such duties 
as are of real or essential service. Unfortunately, at the present 
day, this art of beau ideal is found a great deal too much per¬ 
vading the medical departments : either the professional man 
himself (a young aspirant, perhaps) acquires a gout for the 
“long sword, saddle, bridle;” or his commanding officer en¬ 
forces the manifestation of something of the kind, by investing 
him with all the finery and frippery of a regimental coat, and en¬ 
joining a series of parade duty and military etiquette upon him, 
which is not only quite irrelevant with his station, and inconsist¬ 
ent with what ought to be his pursuits, but which really tends 
to give a bent and turn to his mind very ill-suited to his charac- 
