502 
VETERINARY SCHOOL 
veterinary surgeon to the fourth regiment of chasseurs, was 
selected, agreeably to the request of the Viceroy of Egypt, to 
travel into that country, in order there to practise the veterinary 
art. He left France in 1828, with another pupil from the school 
of Alfort, M. Pretot; and these two veterinarians arrived at 
Rosetta, in the neighbourhood of which there then prevailed an 
epizootic, very fatal to homed cattle. This circumstance afforded 
the newly disembarked adventurers the opportunity of evincing 
the knowledge they possessed of the different branches of their 
art, and of proving the utility and importance of that art, by 
plain and manifest facts ; a mode of proceeding the best calculated 
to dispel the deeply rooted prejudices with which they had to 
contend, and to conciliate a people plunged for ages in ignorance 
and misery. 
The opportunity was fortunate: Messrs. Hamont and Pretot 
availed themselves of it; and the marked success which attended 
their efforts to conquer this disease, disposed the minds of the 
people towards them, and also gained the favourable considera¬ 
tion of some of the Ulemas. These first steps w r ere attended by 
the most important results. The epizootic was not confined to 
the town of Rosetta and its immediate neighbourhood, but ex¬ 
tended its ravages far around, and in many places was exceed¬ 
ingly fatal. Our two veterinarians, separating from each other, 
journeyed in every direction in which the resources of their art 
might be most beneficially employed. 
These excursions made them better acquainted with the state 
of the domesticated animals of that country, their general ma¬ 
nagement, their diseases, and the improvements which might be 
effected. In reporting their proceedings to the proper officers, 
they described all the evils which they had observed, the good 
which they had effected, and the greater good which they thought 
they might be able to accomplish. They principally pointed 
out the necessity of obtaining w r eil instructed persons, and in 
sufficient numbers, to combat with advantage these epizootic 
pests, which desolated the country and destroyed the greater 
part of the cattle; and, finally, they proposed the formation of a 
school like that of human medicine which was established in 
