Bourgelat, Claude

, veterinary surgeon, was a native of Lyons, and in his youth a soldier, after which he studied law, but quitted that pursuit on being appointed chief of the riding-school of Lyons, where he seems to have discovered the employment for which he was best | fitted. From this time he applied himself to the principles of horsemanship, which he detailed in his “Nouveau Newcastle, ou Traite de Cavalerie,” Lausanne, 1747, 8vo. He laboured no less assiduously to rescue the veterinary art from the hands of ignorance and empiricism, and with that view published in 1750, his “Elemens d’hippiatrique, ou Nouveaux principes sur la connoissance des chevaux,” Lyons, 3 vols. 8vo. The knowledge he displayed in this work probably rendered it easy for him to obtain the leave of government to establish a veterinary school at Lyons, of the great utility of which the public soon became sensible, and many able scholars educated under Bourgelat extended this new branch of the medical art to every part of the kingdom. In 1765, he published his “Matiere medicale raisonnee a Tusage de l’ecole veterinaire,” Lyons, 8vo. His success at Lyons induced the government to invite him to Paris, and he founded a second school at Alford, near Charenton, and published several elementary treatises for the use of his scholars, such as “Cours theorique et pratique des bandages” “Traite de la ferrure,” 1776, 12mo; “L’Anatomie compared de tous les animaux,” and “Memoire sur les maladies contagieuses du betail,” 1776, 4to. After a life spent on this important science, he died in 1779, aged sixty-seven. At his death he bore the titles of inspector-general of the veterinary schools, and commissary-general of the stud. Besides his favourite pursuit, he was a man of general knowledge. ¹