VETERINARY MEDICINE IN EGYPT. 
2L5 
he was, however, enabled to make such arrangements that the 
course of instruction was not interrupted, and his pupils always 
maintained an honourable rivalry with those of the medical 
schools. 
At length, in 1833, veterinary medicine was established on a 
more enlarged and solid basis. It became completely indepen¬ 
dent of human medicine : a director, and four professors under 
his especial were appointed, and the veterinary pupils 
were promoted to the grade of officers, and rendered equal to the 
human surgeons in rank, as they already were in science. 
This new organization, however, provoked the most violent 
opposition. The adversaries of the institution, consisting of the 
director and the professors of the medical school, and the members 
of the board of health, presented petitions and memoirs without 
end. The affair was referred to the military board, and discussed 
there. The medical men insisted on the inferior estimation in 
which the veterinary surgeons were held in the respective re¬ 
giments, and, by calculations, more or less erroneous and ex¬ 
aggerated, pretended to prove that a union of the two schools 
would save a very considerable expense. In consequence of 
this they obtained a decision (un firman) which gave them the 
victory. M. Haraont, however, was not discouraged by this first 
reverse. His zeal and firmness had not been sufficiently appre¬ 
ciated by his enemies. He persevered until the independence 
of veterinary medicine was fully acknowledged. His task, how¬ 
ever, was not, in his own estimation, yet completed, and he had 
still important services to render to veterinary science. 
The institution of public studs remained yet to be founded. 
M. Hamont was deeply sensible of the importance of organizing 
this essential branch of rural economy, and of allying it, as it 
naturally ought to be, with veterinary medicine. In 1833, and 
in consequence of his assiduity, and the presentation of vari¬ 
ous memorials, the building of the stud-house at Choubra, in 
the neighbourhood of Cairo, and destined to contain 800 
horses, commenced. Other establishments of a similar kind were 
founded in Egypt and Syria, and plans were introduced for the 
amelioration of the breeds of cattle and sheep. 
