4 SYNOPSIS OF CONTINENTAL VETERINARY JOURNALS. 
“MDubourg, delegate from Lot et Gironne, supported M. 
Griolet’s system—all veterinarians, without distinction, 
belonging to the service of epizootics, a consulting committee 
centralising the service ; no departmental veterinary surgeon. 
“M. Leblanc, of Paris, protested against the equal distribu¬ 
tion advocated by most of those who had taken part in the dis¬ 
cussion. Equality here wmuld amount to anarchy, which 
would oppose the efficacy of the service. The duties of the 
sanitary service ought to be given to the most deserving. He 
would prefer that the election of a departmental veterinary 
surgeon, an indispensable post, be made by competition, such 
a method of nomination being preferable to simple election, 
as ensuring the successful competitor the consideration 
which results from a scientific competition sustained against 
deserving opponents. Thus nominated, the departmental 
veterinarians would be in a position to be accepted everywhere. 
As for veterinarians of cantons, they ought also to prove, not 
by a true competition, but by an examination, whether they 
have the necessary qualifications for the appointment.” 
A number of other gentlemen successively supported 
the necessity for constitution of the sanitary service 
of veterinarians of cantons, having at their head a de¬ 
partmental inspector as a means of centralisation. As for 
the mode of nomination of officers opinions were divided 
between examination and simple election. 
This discussion is formulated in the following vote, carried 
at the Congress by a large majority : 
“The Congress considering that, to efficaciously combat 
epizootics, it is beneficial that veterinarians be called to assist 
in the sanitary service, votes that this service, in each de¬ 
partment, be composed of all the veterinary surgeons prac¬ 
tising in the department, and that this service should be 
directed by a departmental veterinarian, who should be 
chosen by his confreres assembled for this purpose/* 
“In supporting this system the majority adopting it was 
impressed with the difficulties of the selection for the post of 
veterinarian of the canton, and especially of the dangers of 
rivalry between those on whom the sanitary duties fall and 
their brother practitioners not in the service, who could not 
without uneasiness see the entry among their clients which 
the exigencies of the service would entail. In those locali¬ 
ties, and there are many, where there are only two or three 
practitioners in a canton, the nomination of one to the ex¬ 
clusion of so few others to the post of cantonal veterinary 
surgeon would seem to be appointment of one to too high an 
elevation above his competitors for practice (i. e. for exist- 
