THE VETERINARY INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE. 275 



purchased each year for the study of anatomy. Forty to fifty horses 

 and ten or twelve cattle are also purchased each winter for the study 

 of operative surgery, and the practice is also kept up in summer. 

 In the course of the year some two hundred and fifty horses are 

 used for these purposes at Alfort. They are bought by the school — 

 the students paying no additional fees or buying themselves — and 

 are supplied by a company in Paris, at about forty francs per head, 

 the same company again receiving the remains after the school is 

 done with them. The amount appropriated by the Government for 

 these purposes alone is some eight to nine thousand francs per year, 

 exclusive of the amount paid for cattle. During the fourth session 

 the study of microscopical anatomy takes place ; for this purpose the 

 students are divided into sections of twelve, and practice one week 

 at a time, the specified hours and turns coming round about once a 

 month. The school possesses six microscopes, so that, unless a stu- 

 dent possesses one himself, two students must be appointed to each 

 microscope. The anatomical museum does not make the favorable 

 impression which one might expect from the long existence of the 

 school ; it fails in richness of material and systematic arrangement. 

 The number of normal skeletons is very small, scarcely six being 

 observable. Among them is the skeleton of a thorough-bred horse, 

 which was killed on account of having its forearm shattered by a 

 ball at the time Fieschi made an attempt upon the life of Louis 

 Philippe. The collection contains numerous dried preparations of 

 muscles and ligaments, among them that of a horse upon which is 

 seated what was once a man and groom at Alfort, who desired that 

 his body should be preserved in this way. The most interesting and 

 instructive collection is that of the teeth of the domestic animals, 

 arranged so as to show their condition at each year of the animal's 

 life. There are also many interesting artificial preparations of 

 papier-mache and wax. The pathological collection contains a very 

 extensive array of preparations illustrating those processes as they 

 take place in rinderpest. Not more than ten specimens of mon- 

 strosities were observable. The individual preparations are tastefully 

 mounted, but the systematic arrangement is poor. A zoological 

 collection is being begun, owing to the distance of the school from 

 the museums at Paris. A large, well-arranged botanical garden 

 helps to make up the appurtenances of the school. The institution 

 has also excellently arranged stables for some twenty-five cows, two 

 hundred sheep and swine. The library of the school contains over 

 ten thousand volumes, mostly French works, however ; it was 

 greatly enriched at the death of the noted veterinary author, Hu- 



