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Veterinarians and Animal Scientists

Claude Bourgelat: The Horseman Who Founded Veterinary Education in Lyon

A Lyon riding master with a taste for science built the first school of veterinary medicine and put its students to work against the cattle plague.

Who was Claude Bourgelat?

Claude Bourgelat was born on 27 March 1712 into a noble family in Lyon. He first meant to practice law, but a love of horses pulled him toward riding, and in 1740, at 28, he took charge of the Lyon Academy of Horsemanship. Four years later he published a treatise on horsemanship that brought him wide recognition, according to a JAVMA News history of his career.

That route, from the riding school to the laboratory, was typical of eighteenth-century animal medicine. Horses were the valuable animals of the age, and the people who knew them best were stable masters, farriers and cavalry officers, not physicians.

How did a riding master become a scientist?

In 1750 Bourgelat published Elemens d'hippiatrique, a work on the care and diseases of horses, and it led to his election to the Academy of Sciences. He also argued that veterinarians needed formal schools in place of apprenticeship alone.

The idea fit a moment of crisis. Epidemics of cattle plague, or rinderpest, repeatedly swept France and killed herds that peasants and landowners relied upon, and the state had reasons to pay for people who understood livestock disease.

Founding the Lyon veterinary school in 1761

A grant dated 4 August 1761 funded a veterinary school in Lyon, and the first students were admitted in February 1762, with Bourgelat as director. On 3 June 1764 the Royal Council of State gave the school the title Royal Veterinary School after its students helped control cattle disease. VetAgro Sup, the institution that descends from the school, traces its own history to this foundation.

Training students against rinderpest

Starting in 1763 Bourgelat trained his best students quickly to fight rinderpest during epizootics in France. That wartime pace shows the aim of the school: to supply the state with people who could be sent to infected districts to diagnose, quarantine and cull.

In 1764 he was also ordered to create a second veterinary school at Alfort, near Paris. The JAVMA News account gives 1764, while some other sources give 1765, so sources differ by a year. He set standards for both schools in 1777.

The Key to Bourgelat's Success

Bourgelat's achievement was institutional. He did not discover a pathogen or invent a vaccine. He persuaded the French state that animal medicine was worth teaching, and he made a school that produced results quickly enough to keep its funding.

The record is silent on many details of his private life and methods, so the lessons below come from the dates and decisions that sources agree on.

  • He built a reputation first, with a horsemanship treatise in 1744 and a scientific work in 1750 that earned him a seat at the Academy of Sciences.
  • He argued in print that veterinarians needed formal schooling.
  • He tied the school to a public emergency by training students for rinderpest outbreaks from 1763.
  • He earned royal recognition in 1764 after students helped control cattle disease.
  • He copied the model, creating a second school at Alfort and setting standards for both in 1777.

Legacy of the Lyon and Alfort schools

Bourgelat taught until his death on 3 January 1779 at age 67. The Lyon school, in the words of the JAVMA article, later became the Imperial School and finally the National School. Alfort and Lyon became models for veterinary schools elsewhere in Europe, and the profession's later work on cattle diseases, from rinderpest to brucellosis, grew from the habit of formal training he established.

A French pet-health company's history article, Petite histoire de la medecine veterinaire en France, offers a short popular account of the same beginnings.

Why Bourgelat matters to cattle people

Every veterinarian who works a herd, tests for tuberculosis or inspects a sale barn belongs to a tradition that starts in Lyon. For related reading, see farm.FM's ranching section and a farm.FM story on the cattle plague.

Timeline

  1. 1712Born in Lyon on 27 March
  2. 1740Takes charge of the Lyon Academy of Horsemanship
  3. 1744Publishes a treatise on horsemanship
  4. 1750Publishes Elemens d'hippiatrique
  5. 1761A grant funds the Lyon veterinary school (4 August)
  6. 1762First students admitted in February
  7. 1763Begins training students for rinderpest outbreaks
  8. 1764School receives royal title; orders to create Alfort
  9. 1777Sets standards for both schools
  10. 1779Dies on 3 January

Frequently asked questions

Who was Claude Bourgelat?

He was a Lyon riding master and writer who founded the world's first veterinary school at Lyon in 1761 and a second school at Alfort near Paris, creating the model for veterinary education.

When was the first veterinary school founded?

A grant dated 4 August 1761 funded the school at Lyon, and the first students were admitted in February 1762. It received the title Royal Veterinary School in June 1764.

Why was the Lyon veterinary school created?

It grew from the argument that animal medicine needed formal training, and it proved its worth when students helped control cattle plague epidemics in France in the 1760s.

What did Bourgelat write?

He published a treatise on horsemanship in 1744 and Elemens d'hippiatrique in 1750, which led to his election to the Academy of Sciences.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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