ARMY VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
343 
There was scarce an agricultural paper published that had not its 
veterinary department, in which subscribers’ questions pertaining 
to the treatment of sick and disabled animals were answered. 
The medical journals and daily papers made frequent reference 
to the profession, and recognized its importance and acknowledged 
its growth. But where was the Army Veterinary Surgeon during 
all this time ? What had Congress or the War Department done 
for him since 1868 ? The answer is simple enough, and embraced 
in a single word— nothing. He had in fact, been left to fight his 
own battles, unaided and seemingly unthought of, for no one 
appeared to know anything of his condition, his duties, his needs 
or his prospects. 
But out of this gloom, like a sunburst from a darkly overcast 
sky, came the order of March 27,1879, in which the Army Veteri¬ 
nary Surgeon was given a very good supply table, and greatest 
improvement of all, confining all future appointments in the army 
to “ graduates of established and reputable veterinary schools or 
colleges.” 
I did not belong to the little corps of Army Veterinary Sur¬ 
geons at that time, and so do not know with what feelings of 
pleasure and gratitude they received the order ; but civilian as I 
and entirely unacquainted with the Army Veterinary Surgeon’s 
was, life and lot, a thrill of satisfaction ran through my veins when I 
first read the order, for 1 felt that veterinary medicine was freed 
of a heavy incubus, and that the Army Veterinary Surgeon had the 
shaping of his future in his own hands; that he might hope in a 
few years at most, to receive that recognition which countries 
with fewer claims to a finished civilization, and less pretentions 
to a motherly fostering of the sciences, had already accorded to 
his more fortunate though not more deserving brother. 
By this action of the War Department true veterinary surgery 
was recognized as distinct from quackery, and the value of a 
scientific education conceded. While this was not all that could 
have been expected from the Government, it was all the War 
Department had the power to concede. 
A list of the Veterinary Surgeons who have served in the army 
during the iuterval embraced between the close of the war and 
