Army veterinary medicine. 
409 
had, but we can’t pay you for your time, your outlay aud your 
superior services. We acknowledge that you who have spent 
eight years of your life at college and three or more learning 
your profession are the gentlemen we want, but we can give you 
no more ill compensation than we give Michael O’Flynu, the 
blacksmith, and Terry Flannigan, the butcher. True, they can 
neither read nor write, nor do they know the value of one thera¬ 
peutical agent from that of another. Disease to them is as much 
a mystery as any of the ancient hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, 
but no matter, the time was when we could get no others, and 
now you must take the same terms as they have had for twenty 
years , for we can’t afford to raise their pay and rank, we don’t 
like to discharge them, and so we must class you with them.” 
There can be no justice in such treatment of the Veterinary 
Surgeon. It can only create a feeling of bitter resentment in a 
sensitive nature to be told that all your instruction, your labor of 
years and your higher intelligence count for nothing in the Army 
Veterinary Department. There is no justice in classing an edu¬ 
cated veterinarian with the empiric who is but littlej above the 
brute he maltreats, and to deny the former a higher recognition 
than is conceded the latter, only serves to repel the talent of which 
the army is in great need. 
The Veterinary Surgeon which the Government now has most 
use for in her service is the one that has every claimjto the posi¬ 
tion of a gentleman, a scientist, and a willing worker. To secure 
such the Veterinary Surgeon must be placed upon an equality 
with the other commissioned officers of the army. . 
Until this is accomplished, the Department must remain what 
it is now—utterly inefficient in so far as the Government is con¬ 
cerned, of but little account to itself, and still less to the profes¬ 
sion. 
What is Required to Establish an Efficient Army Veterinary 
Department. 
The Army Veterinary Department, as now established, is 
inefficient for the following reasons: 
1st. There are no inducements offered by the Government to 
