ON EPIDEMIC DISEASES. 409 
be very fatal there ; but we have not any satisfactory account of 
•its progress in that country. 
Half a century had now elapsed, and, with occasional remis- 
sions, and often very short ones, this malignant epidemic had 
prevailed, and had extended to the very extremity of Europe. 
The attention of every government had been anxiously directed 
to it. Prompted by benevolence, or urged by the hope of honour 
or reward, the most eminent physicians of the day had devoted 
their time and medical skill to the elucidation of its nature, cause, 
and mode of treatment ; and all, comparatively, without success. 
It must not be said that an unfortunate result attended their 
interference; but the malady continued to spread, although, 
perhaps, it was not so untractable or murderous. 
At length it became evident to the medical men who had thus 
fruitlessly laboured to remedy the evil, and to the agriculturist who 
had suffered so severely by it, that they were contending with the 
foe at much disadvantage, for they knew not his mode of war- 
fare, nor the source whence he derived his power. 
They had not studied — no person had then studied — the ana- 
tomy of domesticated animals, or the influence of their peculiar 
conformation on the discharge of their various functions, or 
the nature and causes of their diseases, and the effects ofivarious 
medicines on cattle in sickness and in health. At length common 
sense suggested the propriety of the establishment of veterinary 
schools, and in 1761 the first European veterinary school was 
founded at Lyons, under the superintendence of the justly-cele- 
brated Bourgelat. 
Partly, perhaps, from natural causes, the disease beginning, as 
we have hinted, to wear itself out in France, but, to a consider- 
able degree, from the diligence and skill of the professors, the 
ravages of the epidemic were evidently and quickly restrained ; 
and although it could never be said to have quite disappeared, 
either in France or elsewhere, and is yet occasionally far too fatal, 
yet its victims are, comparatively speaking, few, and it is de- 
prived of many of its terrors. The altered character and decreased 
devastation of every subsequent epidemic must be traced mainly 
to one cause — the preventive or curative measures suggested by 
veterinarians, and the former, perhaps, much more than the 
latter. 
The beneficial consequences of this new study and profession 
were so manifest, that young men flocked to the school at Lyons, 
not only from every province in France, but from Switzerland, 
Sardinia, Austria, Prussia, and even Denmark and Sweden. A 
second school was established four years afterwards at Alfort, 
and in process of time a third at Toulouse ; the last being ap« 
VOL. xv. 3 i 
