THE VETERINARY INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE. 267 



as to attract the attention of the king, Louis XV, who in an order 

 dated June 30, 1764, gave to the institution the title of a " Royal 

 Veterinary School." A month previously the king had honored 

 Bourgelat with the title of " Director and General Inspector of the 

 Veterinary School at Lyons," and all other such institutions which 

 should be founded in France. The intimate relation which Bourse- 

 lat bears to the early history of the first two veterinary schools of 

 France and the world, makes it almost impossible to treat them 

 separately. Such was the success above alluded to, of the students 

 of the Lyons school, in combating the ravages of the animal pests, 

 that the French Government determined to establish a second insti- 

 tution of a like character. It seems ever to have been the aim of 

 the French Government to make Paris the center of French learning 

 and civilization ; hence it was but natural that a point in the vicin- 

 ity of that city should be selected as the site of the second school. 

 Therefore, on the 27th of December, 1765, a tract of land in the 

 village of Alfort — opposite what is now called Charenton, at pres- 

 ent connected with Paris by a horse-railroad, and also by steamboats 

 on the river — was purchased for the sum of 32,000 livres, and Bour- 

 gelat called to be its director, which position he occupied until his 

 death. Like the majority of men who give their lives for the devel- 

 opment of science, and in service to their countrymen, Bourgelat 

 died poor, but not unforgotten, as is attested by the immortality 

 with which his name is reverenced in France, and the monument 

 lately erected to his memory by his veterinary successors in France 

 and other parts of the world. From the first, the Government did 

 more for the support of the school at Alfort than that at Lyons, 

 for, while the latter school received but 8,333 livres per year for 

 a period of six years, we find the Alfort school receiving some 

 12,000. The Abbe Rozier succeeded Bourgelat in the direction of 

 the school at Lyons, which for many years underwent all sorts of 

 vicissitudes, but finally received its full share of acknowledgment, 

 and is at present a most dangerous rival to that of Alfort for the 

 honors with which fair Science wreaths the brows of her successful 

 children. 



Havemann,* afterward teacher and director of the Royal Veteri- 

 nary School at Hanover, was sent by that Government to study vet- 

 erinary medicine at Alfort at this time. While there he wrote the 

 following letter, describing the condition of things, to the master 

 of the Royal Horse at Hanover : 



* " History of the Veterinary School at Hanover, from 1777 to 1877," p. 45. 



