813 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
fulness, and its members placed one grade below that of a 
“ cook’s police ” (military kitchen helper)—neither an officer 
nor an enlisted man, but a “civil employee ” of a line regiment, 
a maverick, a “ what is it,” an intelligent, thinking, specially 
trained being without a voice, simply a stable attache without 
a single right, without “ protection in his position,” having the 
respect of nobody, shunned by citizens on the outside of the 
service, who gauge him by his official standing, he being of the 
army and still not of it (sounds like the stuff one reads in the 
Bible), and finding him an outcast are afraid of him socially, 
and supposed officially to be deaf, dumb and blind. 
What is wrong anyhow? One is tempted to ask, is the word 
“ vet” equivalent to “mad dog” when applied to some harm¬ 
less canine? Is the veterinary profession so low down in the 
scale of professions that it acts on the service as a red rag does 
on a bull ? Is a veterinaiian a social leper, or is the old veteri¬ 
nary canker which lias afflicted the army for years so hard to 
heal that it will have to be taken out with the knife and re¬ 
placed by new tissue? If so the sooner the operation is per¬ 
formed the better. In the meantime the fight for recognition 
will continue until success is reached. 
Ye aspirants for military honors, struggling for a place in 
the army because you are deluded into thinking the service has 
been improved, believe me when I say that it has not. A few 
of the positions receive a few dollars a month more than the 
others ; otherwise the conditions are worse, and this is especially 
so since the desision given above has been published. 
The decision rendered by the Adjutant General’s Office can 
be made to be more productive of good than anything that has 
happened to the army veterinarian or anything that he has tried 
to accomplish in the past ten years. This circular speaks for 
itself, and when the meaning of it is intelligently placed before 
the congressional committees it will undoubtedly have a good 
effect in advancing our interests. Yours truly, 
Veritas. 
SECTIONAL WORK IN THE A. V. M. A. 
Editors American Veterinary Reviezv : 
Dear Sirs: —The Journal takes occasion in its November 
issue to again voice its opposition to sectional work in our na¬ 
tional organization. With the development of veterinary 
science the energies of the different members of the profession 
have been exerted along various lines; some are engaged in the 
