Claude Bourgelat Biography

French veterinary surgeon (1712–1779)Medal bearing the image of Claude Bourgelat by Alexis Joseph Depaulis

Claude Bourgelat (27 March 1712 – 3 January 1779) was a French veterinary surgeon. He was a founder of scientifically informed veterinary medicine, and he created the world's first two veterinary schools for professional training.

Life and career

Bourgelat was born at Lyon. He initially studied law and worked as a barrister, but he became interested in veterinary medicine because of his interest in horses.

In 1740, at the age of 28, Bourgelat became the head of the Lyon Academy of Horsemanship. As an amateur horsemanship enthusiast, he developed a style of horse riding that is still used as of today. In 1750 Bourgelat wrote a book on the topic of veterinary medicine, in which he considered the idea of founding a veterinary school.

He followed through on this idea when he co-founded the first two veterinary schools in the world, the École nationale vétérinaire de Lyon in 1761 and the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort in 1765. He founded the veterinary college specifically to combat the cattle plague (also called the rinderpest), and students trained at the Lyon veterinary college were credited with helping to cure the disease.

Monument, Lyon

Bourgelat was noted for being an early prac*ioner of scientifically informed veterinary medicine, which incorporated ideas from natural history, chemistry, clinical medicine, and comparative anatomy.

Bourgelat was a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He also contributed more than 235 articles to Diderot and d'Alambert's Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.

Selected works

• Élémens d'hippiatrique, ou, Nouveaux principes sur la connoissance et sur la médecine des chevaux (1750)
• L'art vétérinaire (1761)
• Matiere médicale raisonnée; ou, Précis des médicamens considérés dans leurs effets, a l'usage des éleves de l'Ecole royale vétérinaire; avec les formules médicinales. Lyon, Jean-Marie Bruyset (1765)
• Lehrbegriff der medicinischen Materie; oder, Beschreibung der einfachen Arzeneyen nach ihren Wirkungen; nebst den Medicinischen Formeln. Zum Gebrauche der Lehrlinge in der königl. Vieharzeneyschule zu Lyon. Aus dem Französischen übersetzt. Leipzig, M. G. Wiedmanns Erben und Reich (1766)
• Matiere médicale raisonnée, ou, Précis des médicamens considérés dans leurs effets. Lyon, Chez Jean-Marie Bruyset (1771)
• Elémens de l'art vétérinaire. Précis anatomique du corps du cheval, à l'usage des éleves des écoles vétérinaires. Paris, Vallat-la-Chapelle (1791)

See also

• Veterinary education in France

Notes

References

Further reading

• Marc Mammerickx: Claude Bourgelat: avocat des vétérinaires, Bruxelles 1971
• Hugues Plaideux, «:L'inventaire après décès de Claude Bourgelat:», in Bulletin de la Société française d'histoire de la médecine et des sciences vétérinaires, 10, 2010, p.:125-158.on line
• Hugues Plaideux, «:La descendance de Claude Bourgelat:», in Bulletin de la Société française d'histoire de la médecine et des sciences vétérinaires, 12, 2012, p.:161-176. on line
• Bourgelat, Claude, in: Frank Arthur Kafker, The encyclopedists as individuals: a biographical dictionary of the authors of the Encyclopédie, Oxford 1988, ISBN:0-7294-0368-8, p.:67–71.
• Richard Tagand: Claude Bourgelat, écuyer lyonnais, 1712–1779, in: Revue de médecine vétérinaire 1959, p.:888–897.
• Alcide Railliet, Léon Moulé: Histoire de l'École d'Alfort, Paris 1908, online
• Louis Furcy Grognier: Notice historique et raisonnée sur C. Bourgelat, Fondateur des écoles vétérinaires; ou l'on trouve un aperçu statistique sur ces établis*s, Paris 1805

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain::Wood, James, ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |*le= (help)

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