CORRESPONDENCE. 
481 
an end. In a very short time Congress reassembles. A bill for the 
reorganization of onr increased army will be introduced. Will 
we again be overlooked ? Will you, with your permeating in¬ 
fluence (for you represent every State in this great Union) per¬ 
mit the occasion to pass without opening a path for your young 
and aspiring colleagues that will lead to a glorious future ? 
Of the fourteen veterinarians now in the army, most are of 
long service. Some are already old men and must soon make 
way for our growing generation. Of these fourteen, eleven are 
graduates of some of the best colleges of this continent and of 
Europe, and of the three non-graduates, two are men of over 
35 years’ service, which ought to be a guarantee of their com¬ 
petency. The other, my colleague and friend, whose name, 
often mentioned in this paper, has twenty-one years’ service to his 
credit. Surely those old men, who have fed and fostered our infant 
science on the plains of this great West, should be provided for 
in their declining years, and a justice be done the younger ones 
that is not denied veterinarians in any army in the world. 
Gentlemen, you have our doleful, wasteful history poorly 
placed before you, and we await your verdict. Shall those 
faithful old men be cast on the cold world in their infirm years, 
with the dismal prospect of a Potter’s field pauper’s grave? 
These men who kindled the first spark of your now glorious 
science on the perilous frontier, fanned now into a mighty 
flame by the beaming magic of your powerful influence, that, 
I trust, will blaze and brighten a way to a prosperous and glori¬ 
ous future for our rising young men, and cast its hallowed light 
on the retired, and, I trust, happy homes of our old colleagues, 
where they will peacefully await “ taps ” from the bugle of the 
Great Commander. 
DIPHTHERIA ANTITOXIN PATENT. 
» Kankakee, Sept. i8, 1898. 
Editors American Veterinary Review : 
Sirs: —A firm of foreign chemical manufacturers acting as 
commercial agents for Emil Behring, the noted German bacteri¬ 
ologist, have lately been granted (June, 1898) a patent in the 
United States which covers entirely the method of producing 
diphtheria antitoxin serum. The granting of this patent to 
these foreigners practically gives them a monopoly in the 
production and sale of this most important therapeutical agent 
in this country. 
That the patent laws of our country are so loosely framed 
