ARMY VETERINARY LEGISLATION. 
773 
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me to make a suggestion? The surgeon comes in immediate 
contact with the men about him who are engaged in carrying 
men on the stretchers to the hospitals, and furthermore, he 
comes in contact with other enlisted men who are employed 
with the men in the hospital, and it is necessary to give him 
some rank in order that he may discharge his duties and assert 
the difference in rank between himself and the enlisted men. 
That is not true in the case of the veterinary surgeon who goes 
to the cavalry stables to doctor their horses. You might as well 
give rank to the men who currv the colonel’s horse as to confer 
rank upon the veterinary surgeons. 
Mr. Mondell. I agree with the gentleman from Ohio in all 
that he says, and I thank him for his remarks. The surgeon 
in the Army is not only the physician who attends to the 
wounds and the ailments of the soldiers, but he is also the one 
who goes among the wounded in the hospital and on the field 
and cheers and encourages them, and he shares with them 
largely their privations and their dangers. He does not belong 
to the same class as the wagoners and the farriers. 
It has been stated here that the change would only mean an 
additional expense of $6000. Possibly so at the time of the 
passage of the bill, but it means a constantly increasing corps 
of officers who in the course of time are to go to swell the re¬ 
tired list, and, instead of $6000 annual expenditure, in a short 
time it would add a very much larger sum. If we are not able 
to secure the services of good veterinary surgeons at the pres¬ 
ent prices paid, let us pay better prices for our veterinary sur¬ 
geons, but never give horse doctors, honorable though their 
calling is, rank and authority with the fighting men of the 
American Army. 
Mr. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts. May I ask the gentle¬ 
man a question ? 
The Chairman. The time of the gentleman from Wyom¬ 
ing has expired. 
Mr. Fitzgerald of Massachusetts. I want to say that he 
referred to the Santiago campaign, and undertook to show to 
the House that there was a difference between the doctor who 
doctors the soldiers and one who doctors the army mule. I 
want to say, as an incident of that campaign, that it developed 
that a horse doctor, Dr. Heidenkooper, was assigned to the 
treatment of soldiers in the hospital, so I do not think that 
that point amounts to much. 
Mr. Bingham. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman who has 
