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Home Department. 
ON THE ORIGIN OF VETERINARY SCIENCE IN 
GREAT BRITAIN. 
FROM THE 
VETERINARY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ESSAYS, 
By Richard Vines, M.R.C.V.S. 
Late Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Royal Veterinary College. 
England appears to have been almost the last among the 
nations of Europe which attempted the encouragement of 
the scientific study of this most useful profession, and it was 
not until the year 1788 that the first proposals for establish¬ 
ing a veterinary school were published in London, by M. 
Vial de St. Bel, who had previously received a professional 
education at the Royal College of Lyons, and subsequently 
held the office of junior assistant in that of Paris. 
The first veterinary school in France was established at 
Lyons, by royal mandate, in 1761? when M. Bourgelat, a 
gentleman of that city, and subsequently a voluminous 
writer, was appointed professor. Four years after this, 
another school was opened at Alfort, near Paris; and similar 
establishments likewise followed in Vienna, Berlin, Copen¬ 
hagen, Stutgard, Wirtemberg, and Utrecht in Holland. 
St. Bel informs us that in consequence of having been 
superseded in a promotion which he had a right to expect, 
through the then Master of the Horse to the King of France, 
he was resolved to come over to England to pass some time 
in observing the state of rural economy in this country, in 
examining the different breeds of cattle, and especially horses 
—in a word, whatever had any relation to the principal objects 
of his favorite profession. “ I communicated my design,* 5 
says he, “to M. Broussonet, m.d., perpetual secretary to the 
Ro} T al Society of Agriculture in Paris, and Fellow of the Royal 
Society of London. His reply to me was remarkable. He 
told me that if I went to England with the above intentions, 
I should be astonished at the beauty and value of the do¬ 
mestic animals of all kinds, and that I should find agriculture 
in the highest state of perfection, but that I should find 
the veterinary art totally neglected. But he added, that if 
