The Birth Of The Veterinary Medical Profession

                   

                          

                  THE BIRTH OF THE               

    VETERINARY MEDICAL PROFESSION

    Of all the medical professions world-wide, veterinarians can take

pride in knowing they can trace the origins to one man, the date and 

the school that founded the veterinary medical profession.  None of 

the other medical professions can claim this historical fact.

    Claude Bourgelet in 1761, founded the first veterinary medical      

school in Lyon, France.

                 

                               

        

     In 1762, Claude Bourgelet founded the first veterinary medical school                                 in the world in Lyon, France.

   He signed a 6-year lease with the Rectors of the Hotel-Dieu, a former inn                          in the Guillotiere district of Lyon.

    This postcard was mailed in 1912 by a soon-to-graduate veterinary student

 from the National Veterinary School in Lyon.  

                   

              

     His students, went on to establish numerous veterinary medical                                           schools throughout Europe and the America’s.                                                        

     Mexico City was the site of the first veterinary medical school in                                     the America’s in 1853. There are now 44 veterinary medical schools                                       in Mexico.

    Then 29 years later, in 1882 Harvard University in Boston founded                                 the first veterinary medical school as a private school in North America.

     In February of 1896, a Free Clinic was opened to treat horses, dogs

and cats.  After 18 years, the school closed in June 1900.  During the                                  17 years of operation, 119 men had graduated.