18 
A. A. HOLCOMBE. 
regards hygienic principles, and in many instances hard work 
with deficient forage, served to promote susceptibility and greatly 
increased the resulting mortality. 
To these causes must be added the absence of the one means 
by which the disease could be held in check—the services of edu¬ 
cated veterinarians. 
But great as were the losses sustained at that time from the 
want of proper veterinary attendance, comparatively, the army 
to-day is but little better off. 
True, hygienically, the condition of the public animals has 
been greatly improved since the war, but this change for the bet¬ 
ter is dependent in great part upon accidental conditions, and as 
I propose to show directly, when circumstances present the oppor¬ 
tunity, consequent losses are proportionately as heavy as they were 
during the former period.* The usually short campaigns which 
our cavalry horses are now called on to perform, and the congre¬ 
gation of animals in small numbers at our posts, of necessity tends 
to diminish considerably the mortality from infectious diseases. 
But these are simply fortuitous circumstances—not considerate 
precautions. To trust to a permanent continuance of the former 
is to invite the disaster which sooner or later follows. Economy 
is to be attained only by the adoption of the proper safeguards. 
To gather reliable statistics of the diseases which affect our 
public animals cannot readily be accomplished while the army is 
inflicted with the present veterinary regime. Notwithstanding 
the provisions of General Order No. 36, A. G. O. 1879, require 
a monthly report of the sick, wounded, condemned, killed, etc., 
from every company and battery, the information to be gained 
from the reports has never been published for the information 
of the veterinary surgeons and officers of the army. That these 
statistics are reliable is doubtful, when it is considered that with 
the exception of the reports made by five or six of the veterinary 
surgeons, they are made up by officers who have but little or no 
knowledge of animal diseases, and scarce a conception of patho¬ 
logical lesions. To trust to reports of this kind would most 
likely mislead; but still the reports are not without much value, 
for if they were properly tabulated by a veterinary surgeon and 
