552 EXAMINATION OF THE VETERINARY STUDENTS 
necessary only to instruct them, in order to cause this opposition 
to disappear; it is this which you see us effectually accomplish¬ 
ing, by little and little. Our path has been smoothed in this 
respect; but it has been beset with other obstacles difficult to 
overcome, and different from the first, because ignorance was not 
the sole cause of their existence. 
u Nothing, however, could terrify us even for a moment; no¬ 
thing could force us to retrograde, nor even to remain stationary 
at the point we had reached. The more numerous the obstacles 
became, the more our efforts increased. We should have been 
culpable, indeed, if we had acted otherwise, when the illustrious 
prince who came to give to Egypt a new existence was, him¬ 
self, an example of assiduity, zeal, and perseverance. Among 
the principal attacks directed against us, some aimed at nothing 
less than the overthrow of the institution. The detractors of 
the system of reform adopted and carried on with vigour by 
the government alleged certain reasons for the abolishment of 
the veterinary school, which it is not of importance for me to 
relate here : but, among other things, they said, that the study of 
veterinary medicine was superfluous ; that it was a very simple 
affair, and that the farriers of the country knew all that our 
schools could teach. 
“ Permit me, gentlemen, to request your attention for a moment 
to this objection. It is almost a half century ago since a cele¬ 
brated physician, Cabanis , full of love for the science which he 
cultivated with so much success, expressed himself as follows in 
a report to the Council:—‘ For a long time the veterinary art 
was regarded as the degradation of medicine: struck down, as it 
were, by a sort of anathema of general prejudice against it, it 
dragged on its existence, disfigured doubtless by ignorance and 
superstitious practices, or, rather, it no longer had real existence. 
But these ridiculous prejudices are dissipated, and we no more 
think that the art of preserving the lives of useful animals can 
degrade those who practise it. That art, born, if we may so 
say, in our own days, has made much progress; it is become the 
subject of many important works; and the distinguished indi¬ 
viduals to whom it owes this new eclat , occupy, in the public 
opinion, the place which is their due, and which the utility of 
the art will, henceforward, assign to them. The time is at hand 
when the two medicines, human and veterinary, will in some 
sort be one—when they will be founded on the same common 
principles, and differ only in the application of these principles.’ 
“At the present day, gentlemen, there exist in all Europe schools 
in which veterinary medicine is taught, the pupils of which fill 
