640 
VETERINARY EDUCATION IN FRANCE. 
In the present state of affairs, no general or special law, no 
order having the force of a law, reserves to the pupils of the vete- 
rinary schools the exclusive practice of animal medicine. 
It is true, a decree of council, sanctioned by the king, dated 
11th August, 1765, “authorises such pupils of the veterinary 
schools as shall have for four consecutive years been engaged in 
the study of their profession, to practise for the time to come 
their art, by virtue of royal privileges conferred upon veterinary 
science;” but such “privileges” have since, by decrees of the 
Constituent Assembly, been abolished. 
So that we are reduced to the humiliating confession — one the 
laws bear us out in — that, at the present day, the right of practis- 
ing veterinary medicine, without diploma or certificate of capacity, 
remains not only unforbidden in France by any penal statute, but 
is not even by law accounted actionable. 
The penal law of France takes no notice of any act of usurpa- 
tion of title conferred by diploma from veterinary schools. The 
decree of 1813, and the royal ordonnance of 1825, have well 
defined the conditions on which certificates or diplomas were to 
be granted, conferring the degrees of Veterinarian , Veterinary 
Mareschal, and Veterinary Surgeon ; but the right accruing to 
those entitled to such distinctions appears so ill established in 
courts of justice, that it has been decided that such titles could be 
assumed by anybody, with or without diploma, practising animal 
medicine. 
So that, by the existing (French) law, while any fresh comer 
may practise animal medicine without any diploma, he may at the 
same time, if he chooses, assume a title which cannot be conferred 
upon any pupil of a veterinary college under four years of regular 
study, followed by examination. 
Such a state of things is evidently as unjust towards veterina- 
rians as it is prejudicial to the public interest. 
And these are not the only disadvantages arising out of such 
legislation. 
At the period of the issuing of the decree of 1813, there were 
not above twelve hundred veterinarians in France ; and at that 
time, the service of the army requiring a large number, agricul- 
turists were left so in need, in many localities, of medical aid 
for their sick cattle, that they were forced to call in empirics. 
This was for them a lamentable alternative. Government saw 
this, and, in order to assist them, modified the laws relating 
thereto. 
Now, it was enacted, that every veterinarian be authorised to 
take pupils on conditions that shall be agreed upon between the 
