412 
FEARN AUGHT. 
brain too small to retain any of the knowledge there imparted, 
crept into the army as an officer , either through some political 
influence brought to bear upon the White House, who appoints 
him from civil life, or he enlists in the army as a private, if his 
father is an officer, serves a certain period, and, after passing a 
bogus examination before a board of officers composed of friends 
of the family, lo, and behold, blooms forth as an officer—and looks 
down with lofty contempt on thd miserable u horse doctor,’’ who 
has spent from three to four years of his life, and from two to four 
thousand dollars in cash to acquire a scientific training that will 
place him in a position where he can earn from seventy-five to 
one hundred dollars per month, and herd with the common soldier 
who takes a pride in ridiculing his professional opinions, even to 
his very face. All men, even veternary surgeons, must have 
associates; it is human nature; and stationed at a military post, the 
veterinarian being tabooed from the society of the officers, seeks 
the Commissary Sergeant, who issues the rations to the trooper, 
and whose ideas and aspirations can never soar above beans and 
hard bread, or the Quartermaster Sergeant, who keeps tally of 
the pick-axes and shovels, and whose aim in life is to get ahead 
one pick-axe, and cheat the government mule out of his just due 
in the shape of forage. In this position, and with these associates, 
is it any wonder that the veterinary surgeon in the army is salu¬ 
ted by every drunken soldier he may meet, with the familiar 
abbreviation of “ Hello, Doc,” whereas the same soldier would no 
more think of saluting the M.D. in this manner than he would 
of committing suicide, and allow me to remark right here that 
the veterinary surgeon is not recognized either professionally or 
socially by the Post Surgeon ; in fact he is not noticed at all. You 
may remark he can at least engage himself at his professional 
duties. Professional duties indeed! he has none; the troop 
farrier—over whom the veterinary surgeon has no more control 
than the president of the Lime Kiln Club has over the Interior 
Department—attends to that; if an animal becomes ill in the 
troop he is dosed by the farrier with—well, anything will do that 
comes handy, and if the animal recovers, well and good. If he 
is about to die the veterinary surgeon is sent for, and is then 
