592 
OLOF SCHWARZKOPF. 
away his time in useless endeavors to create amateur veterina¬ 
rians from the ranks of the assistant-quartermasters, cavalry 
and infantry officers, chaplains,* farriers and civilian-agents, 
which experiment must inevitably result in failure, and which 
has actually produced conditions as cited above. 
The writer feels that the time has passed to argue the ques¬ 
tions whether an organized veterinary service would materially 
improve the condition and activity of an army in the field, and 
whether it would bring about a saving of needless expenditures. 
This has been demonstrated long ago by those European armies 
which have maintained such corps for the last fifty years or 
more. The only points open to discussion are these: First, 
what kind of a veterinary organization are we to adopt, and 
second, how are we to institute this new organization into the 
existing army service ? 
We must naturally look for a model for such organization to 
the foremost armies of Europe. Not that we should adopt such 
in its entirety, for foreign armies have their peculiar features 
that are objectionable to ours. But we must find a basis on 
which to build our future organization, letting it work out its 
own forms and merits according to the spirit and the needs of 
this army. From this point of view the British army veterinary 
organization commends itself as the most natural and practical 
to build from. It consists of a corps of commissioned officers, 
whose personnel is selected from the graduates of the English 
veterinar}/ schools. It is in charge of a principal veterinary 
surgeon with the rank of colonel, and the personnel consists of 
staff veterinary surgeons with the rank of lieutenant-colonel 
and major who are attached to the army corps; of veterinary 
surgeons ranking as captains, most of whom are detailed as in¬ 
structors to various training schools ; of assistant veterinary sur¬ 
geons who are attached to the regiments of cavalry, artillery, and 
to the battalions of transportation, and of farrier-majors, farrier- 
* A chaplain at a post in the Northwest, situated 
for soma tima detailed to inspect (?) cattle supplied 
a.t the same post is stationed a veterinary surgeon. 
on an Indian Reservation, has been 
to Indians for consumption, although 
