THE VETERINARY INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE. 279 



studying, and offers the great advantage of a competent adviser 

 and consulting assistant.) Aside from an anatomico-physiological 

 essay, the examination is entirely oral. Each professor hands in an 

 account, with reference to each student examined, in the form of a 

 number, which is inclosed and sealed ; these numbers are then added 

 together in a somewhat complicated manner. 



Hertwig, who visited the French schools in 1871, in speaking 

 of the veterinary condition outside the schools, says that the civil 

 veterinarian is entirely dependent upon his practice for a livelihood, 

 there being no civil official veterinarians, as in Germany, occupy- 

 ing positions for which they are paid by the Government. Miil- 

 ler, who visited the school in 1876, and whose report I have mostly 

 followed, also says the same thing; "but that in some depart- 

 ments there are so-called ' arrondissements ' which receive from the 

 communal funds from three to six hundred francs per year, but 

 they are not connected directly with the Government, and their pay 

 is yearly resumed." A revision of the " Laws and Eegulations of 

 France for the Prevention and Suppression of Contagious Animal 

 Diseases " has lately been made by the Government (1879), but I 

 have failed to see any indication of the division of that country 

 into departments and districts, with its appropriate government 

 veterinarian, as we shall see is the case in Germany when we come 

 to speak of the veterinary institutions of that country. Such may 

 be in contemplation, however, and will be a great gain for the pro- 

 fession in that country. There are, however, municipal and local 

 veterinary officials stationed as inspectors of markets, horse-fairs, 

 and the like. Notwithstanding most earnest remonstrance on the 

 part of the veterinary profession of France for many years, the 

 Government has not yet taken the steps it should for the protection 

 of the holders of its own diploma, by enacting laws for the suppres- 

 sion of quackery, which renders the task of gaining an honest living 

 unnecessarily difficult for the graduated members of the profession, 

 for the quack is ever ready with infallible cure-alls, and is ever such 

 a glutton and an unprincipled wretch that he will work for any fee, 

 no matter how small ; and, on the other hand, frequently gets fees 

 for services rendered which a graduated man would scarce have the 

 effrontery to ask. All that the Government does is to make known 

 in a public print that the veterinarian is the holder of a government 

 diploma when he settles in a district to practice. These conditions 

 are made still more onerous by the large number of graduates which 

 are yearly turned out from the schools. "In 1871 the department 

 of the Seine, inclusive of Paris and the school at Alfort, and several 



