John Hunter and veterinary medicine.

THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE was founded in London in 1791, and was the first institution of its kind in the English-speaking countries. At the time of its establishment it was known simply as the London Veterinary College. The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons did not receive a Charter until i844. On the Continent, recognized centres for veterinary education had been in existence for many years past. The first was established at Lyons in 1763 and was followed by one at Alfort in I766. Other colleges quickly followed in Italy (Turin, I769), Germany (G6ttingen, I771), and Denmark (Copenhagen, I773). In the year that the London College was founded, a student intending to take up veterinary medicine had a choice of no less than twenty-one centres, all of which, however, were on the Continent. One ofthe best known, as certainly the most easily reached from England, was at Alfort, so near Paris that it was alternatively known as the Paris College. In the late I780's a sum of money was collected by the Odiham Agricultural Society of Hampshire to send English students over there to qualify. In June 1788 a former junior Professor at Alfort, Monsieur Charles Vial de St. Bel,t visited England, and during a six months' residence endeavoured to gain support for a course of veterinary instruction he proposed to give in this country. All his efforts proved unsuccessful, so he returned to France with an English lady he had met and married during his visit. However, he found conditions so unsettled in France, that at the end of only two months he returned to England. In August of that year (I789) the storm broke, and Sainbel lost his patron, M. de Flesseilles, who had been paying him an annuity, in the chaos of the French Revolution. At that time Sainbel was fairly well known in England through his dissection of the famous racehorse Eclipse. His proposals to give courses of lectures in veterinary medicine, particularly as regards the horse, again