214 
A SKETCH OF THE STATE OF 
to teach these men the study, altogether new to them, of the 
numerous morbid agencies which exercised so cruel an influence 
over the whole of Egypt; and, worst of all, they were entirely 
ignorant of the language of the people, and often without any 
interpreter by means of whom they could make themselves 
understood. 
In spite of all these obstacles, their efforts were crowned with 
such happy results, that the Egyptian government was eager to 
found a school like those in France. Pupils flocked from every 
part of Egypt, and an institution was established at Rosetta, the 
seeming centre of all the epizootic miasmata. 
Then commenced for M. Hamont a long series of labour and 
fatigue, and in the midst of which his activity and his zeal were 
never relaxed. When this nascent institution required additional 
surveillance and instruction, M. Pretot met with an untimely 
death, and M. Hamont found himself alone. He sunk not, how¬ 
ever, under the task ; but he alone organized, he alone brought 
to a state of perfection scarcely credible, the Egyptian school. 
A little while afterwards the institution was transferred from 
Rosetta to Abou Zabel, and united with that of human medi¬ 
cine. The pupils arriving from Rosetta attended the courses of 
materia medica, chemistry, and pharmacy appointed for those of 
human medicine. For every thing else they were indebted to 
M. Hamont. 
This state of subordinacy of veterinary to human medicine 
could not continue long. M. Hamont felt that it was a question 
of life or death for his institution. He was convinced that this 
incorporation of veterinary medicine with that of human, under 
the inspection of a board of health composed of practitioners of 
human medicine alone, would place the former in a state of vas- 
sallage and inferiority that could not fail of embarrassing its 
future progress. He therefore protested and struggled against 
an authority arbitrarily imposed on an establishment which owed 
its existence to his labours and those of M. Pretot. In the midst 
of endless contention on this point, M. Hamont was often obliged, 
and during long periods, to absent himself from the school, for 
the care of the cavalry depots everywhere devolved upon him: 
