ARMY VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
405 
The Rights of the Army Veterinary Surgeon as a Representative 
of a Scientific Profession. 
Veterinary medicine has reached a point of development at 
which it ceases longer to be a mere art, and its value to the prog¬ 
ress of nations can no longer be questioned. The eminent ser¬ 
vices it has at all times rendered human medicine is a matter of 
common history, while its recognition as a specialty of general 
medicine is complete in most European countries. 
How much it has added to the wealth and happiness of man¬ 
kind is beyond computation, and only the student of its history 
can have a conception of the many influences it lias exercised in 
the development of physiology, therapeutics, and experimental 
pathology. How greatly it will add to our rapidly growing agri¬ 
cultural interests when it is permitted to exercise its proper in¬ 
fluence, is not now determinable, although the General Govern¬ 
ment has been lately compelled by foreign powers to acknowl¬ 
edge that veterinary medicine alone could afford protection to 
our endangered live-stock interests. It was veterinary medicine 
in the countries with which we have intimate commercial inter¬ 
course that discovered the many sources of danger to which their 
citizens were subject from the indiscriminate use of meats, and it 
was their exertions in behalf of their countrymen that directed 
the attention of the authorities to these dangers. Very properly 
our Government has sought the assistance of the Veterinary Sur¬ 
geon to control animal diseases, even though a little coercion was 
required to effect it. It will be gratifying to the workers in the 
profession when our Government voluntarily acknowledges the im¬ 
portance of veterinary science as a factor of preeminence in all 
true political economy. 
What the Veterinary Surgeon is to foreign governments he 
must eventually become to ours, for veterinary surgery in this 
country is growing with such rapidity that it must soon cease to 
be a mare follower in the lead of others, and become with them 
a leader. 
It is unfortunate that this fight for progress must be made 
without the assistance of a Government that has so many claims 
