Cleared by a Thumb

1910

The guilt or innocence of an army veterinary surgeon, accused by a soldier of assault at Pontivy, France, rested on the question whether or not the accused man sucked his thumb after the soldier had accidentally inflicted a slight wound.

While M. Berland, the veterinary surgeon, was performing an operation on a horse's leg at the barracks of the Second cavalry regiment at Pontivy, a trooper who was holding down the horse inadvertently scratched M. Berland's hand, in consequence of the horse moving suddenly. The surgeon examined the scratch, and then administered a sound box on the ear to the soldier, who received the punishment in silence, but later complained to an officer.

The court-martial spent considerable time in ascertaining whether the choleric surgeon struck the trooper suddenly, without reflection, as a person might do after having a corn trodden on, or whether the blow was given deliberately, after Mr. Berland had time to reflect. On learning that M. Berland did not stop to suck the wounded thumb before boxing the trooper's ear, the court decided that the blow was not premeditated and he was acquitted.

Has Cow with Wooden Leg

1914

New York, Jan. 2. — James M. I. Galloway, veterinary surgeon of Kirkintilloch, Scotland, arrived yesterday from Glasgow with photographs of a cow with a wooden leg, which the veterinary says is almost as good to the cow as an ordinary leg of beef and much more effective in knocking out folks who try to milk her on the wrong side.

Other veterinaries laughed at Galloway, who is young and of an experimental temperament, when he decided to save the life of a cow after the leg had been cut off by a locomotive.

The only time the wooden leg gets the cow into trouble is when she stands too long in a damp field and the leg sinks in a foot or so. Mr. Galloway is going to visit his brother, a veterinarian of Washington.