ARMY VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
403 
The pay of the Army Veterinary Surgeon is meagre for the 
service rendered, and entirely inadequate for respectable support. 
Competence is not to be thought of on a salary of 75 or 100 
dollars a month. There is no future to anticipate, for there is no 
promotion except in the four regiments having Senior Veterinary 
Surgeons, and this is so inconsiderable that it can scarcely be 
reckoned an especial honor. 
If or honorable service, for bravery, for a life worn out, there 
is no reward. When old age creeps over his powers and renders 
him unable to withstand that which a performance of his duties 
demands, he receives the same treatment as the broken-down 
mule that fails on the march—he is turned out to beg, to starve, 
or to die, while his family must shift for themselves. 
This is in reality the Army Veterinary Surgeon’s condition, 
if one exception is made regarding the pay of the Inspecting 
Veterinary Surgeon in the Department of the Missouri. It is a 
disgrace to the Gfovernment and to the profession that the Army 
Veterinary Surgeon is accorded such treatment. The remedy 
should be enforced through the influence of the profession. It 
can be done. 
But let us see what the Army Veterinarians have done for 
themselves since March 27, 1879 ! 
During the summer of 1880 James Humphreys prepared and 
circulated among the graduated Regimental Veterinary Surgeons, 
for their signatures, a bill to be presented, through the Secretary 
of War, to Congress, which had for its purpose the establishing 
of an Army Veterinary Medical Department, to consist of— 
One Chief Veterinary Surgeon; rank, pay, etc., Captain 
(mounted). Twenty Veterinary Surgeons; rank, pay, etc., First 
Lieutenaut (mounted). Twenty Assistant Veterinary Surgeons; 
rank, pay, etc., Second Lieutenant (mounted). 
This bill and petition were returned by the Secretary of War 
with the endorsement that he did not approve of any other Vet¬ 
erinary Department than the one now existing, and therefore 
declined to present the bill. 
Hear the close of the year copies of the following letter were 
mailed to the Veterinary Surgeons of every cavalry regiment: 
