THE VETERINARY SURGEON IN THE U. S. ARMY. 
411 
receives but seventy-five dollars per month, it being understood 
that he enters as junior surgeon, the senior receiving one hundred 
dollars; the duties consist of visiting the stables, generally once 
a day, and treating any animal that may be brought to his notice 
as requiring his services, but this latter seldom happens for reasons 
that will soon be apparent. What rank does the veterinary sur¬ 
geon in the United States army occupy ? This is a very natural 
question. He occupies no rank virtually; the army regulations, 
the book by which all army people swear, says he shall hold the 
rank, and receive the pay and allowances of a Sergeant Major, 
but the veterinary surgeon being a civil employee cannot hold 
any rank, therefore it is only nominal. The next question in order 
is, what is a Sergeant Major ? A Sergeant Majorship is the 
highest rank that any enlisted man can hold in the army of the 
United States, and this rank is only three removes from a private 
soldier. The Sergeant Major is selected and appointed by the 
commanding officer of the regiment, and he can be relieved and 
reduced at his will. It requires no especial training to fill 
the rank of Sergeant Major; all that is necessary is to read and 
write fairly well; he is simply a soldier , and this term has a 
very significant meaning when uttered by an officer, for remem¬ 
ber an officer is not a soldier, he is an officer. The chasm between 
an officer and a soldier is a very wide and deep one indeed, and can¬ 
not be bridged under any circumstances, except by a commission 
signed by the President of the United States; and yet the army 
veterinarian is placed on the soldiers’ side of the chasm, or sus¬ 
pended midway in a miraculous manner, like Mohammed’s coffin. 
In this connection the unfortunate veterinary surgeon always 
reminds me of Darwin’s “ missing link.” The wonder is that his 
caudal appendage has not blossomed forth ere this. Socially the 
army veterinary surgeon is not tolerated by the officers; they 
no more think of inviting the veterinary surgeon to dinner or 
any other social entertainment than they would of inviting the 
Sergeant Major or Mr. Crowley, (ere his death) in Central Park 
Zoological Gardens; he is referred to as the “horse doctor,” pro¬ 
bably by some little Second Lieutenant, who, having been dis¬ 
missed from West Point because his cranium was too thick or his 
