EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 4 I 7 
grade we are not just now prepared to inform our readers. Be 
this, however, what it may, that the system must be one which 
has obvious advantages over ours is in similar departments 
admitted even by our own army authorities, seeing they have 
sanctioned the institution of similar grades and classes among 
surgeons both of the army and navy. Our cavalry regiments 
may not be considered as of magnitude sufficient to require or 
be able to employ more than a single veterinary surgeon ; and, 
were the regiments maintained entire in their quarters or 
stations, such would really be the fact. When, however, 
regiments are parted into divisions and detachments, it is fre¬ 
quently, perhaps generally, more than one veterinary surgeon 
can do to attend properly, or even at all under some circum¬ 
stances, to them all. In such cases an assistant would be found 
of essential service, and most probably, were the calculation 
properly made, be really, through a series of years, found to 
be a saving, instead of an addition to the annual cost of the 
regiment. Be this as it may, one great advantage the service 
would derive from it is too palpable to admit of any argument 
at all; and that is, the especial fitness such assistants would 
acquire for performing the duties of full veterinary surgeon to 
a regiment: a post which, to be properly and advantageously 
maintained, calls for a great deal more practical knowledge and 
experience about horses than young men possess on their en¬ 
tering the service ab incipio. The medical attainments can¬ 
didates are found to possess, require the finish of practice to 
make them efficiently and serviceably available; while several 
supplementary acquirements, such as a knowledge of horses, as 
to buying, passing, and selecting suitable ones for the service; 
a knowledge of stable discipline, ventilation, forage, See. as well 
as of the business of the forge ; must be added, ere a veterinary 
officer can be regarded as efficient for the service. All this he 
would have an opportunity of learning under the tuition of an 
able and experienced officer of his own profession, had he the 
advantage afforded him of serving some years as assistant 
before he became entrusted with the responsible office of full 
veterinary charge of a regiment. 
Looking over the French schedule, we perceive a column set 
