188 DUTIES OF A REGIMENTAL VETERINARY SURGEON. 
Army Veterinarian” very clearly makes out, that room for farther 
improvement on the present system still exists. The object that 
Order had in view was, I think, not fully achieved under the 
detail it marked out. I do not presume to come forward to point 
out the mode in which the hiatus can be best filled up; but I 
may be permitted to shew the plan I adopted on getting veteri¬ 
nary charge of a regiment in India. 
In The Veterinarian of January I gave a form of a regi¬ 
mental return of sick horses. Such a form, simply and compen¬ 
diously enough, indicates the past and present state of diseases 
and other casualties in a regiment. A book should be kept, in 
which the casualties being entered as they occur, from it, at any 
time, can be readily extracted a 44 present stateor a copy of 
the details for a week, or a month, or six months, forms a Re¬ 
turn for the period, as it may be. To e '&c\i “ Half-yearly Re¬ 
turn” an 44 Abstract ” should be appended, in arrangement simi¬ 
lar to that now in use, but having' its 44 nosology ” more scientifi¬ 
cally developed. Of cases of minor importance, a mere nota¬ 
tion of the heads of treatment may be written down under 
“ Remarks and Index to Case-Book;” while the history of more 
important cases should be carried in detail to another book, the 
44 Case Book.” Both books should lie for reference to by the 
Farrier Major, so that the orders or instructions of the Veterinary 
Surgeon can never be infringed upon or mistaken without culpable 
negligence. The latter, in going round sick stables, has recur¬ 
rence to his note-book, and from it daily enters his remarks in 
the 44 Case-Book.” These books, the 44 Register and Return- 
Book of Sick and Lame Horses” and the 46 Case-Book ,” being 
kept with the regiment from year to year, always afford a 
circumstantial and perspicuous reference to any case or period. 
To clearly convey the form of Case-Book I adopted, I subjoin 
an extract of two pages, and which, with the 44 Form of a Regi¬ 
mental Return,” in the January Number, will give an outline of 
the whole system of official registry of veterinary transactions in 
a regiment I have sought to submit. 
I may remark, that 44 gram” is a kind of pea on which horses 
are chiefly, with root-grass, fed in India; and a 44 seer” is equiva¬ 
lent to tw o lbs. 
John Ralston, 
V. S. Madras Cavalry . 
Scotland, 18tli March, 1331. 
