SUMMARY: AN UNPUBLISHED ROYAL DECREE WRITTEN BY CLAUDE BOURGELAT ON THE CONTROL OF CATTLE PLAGUE (1777)
Mis en ligne le 20/01/2020
https://blog.xn--archsantanimcomp-iqb.com/2020/01/summary-n-unpublished-royal-decree.html
Thème: Un manuscrit inédit de Claude Bourgelat.
Full article in french
https://blog.xn--archsantanimcomp-iqb.com/2020/01/summary-n-unpublished-royal-decree.html
Thème: Un manuscrit inédit de Claude Bourgelat.
Full article in french
The eighteenth-century archives of the departement of Indre-et-Loire (Tours, France), are holding an important manuscript of 44 pages entitled: “Projet d’un arrêt du conseil d’état du roy relativement aux maladies contagieuses du bétail” - draft of a royal decree on contagious diseases in cattle. This document is accompanied by a correspondence on June and July 1777 between the author of the draft, Claude Bourgelat (1712-1779), founder and inspector of the royal veterinary schools, and François du Cluzel, then main administrator of the three provinces of Touraine, Maine and Anjou. The draft entails 34 articles plus 25 rich explanatory notes. It tackles quite exhaustively all aspects of the official control of contagious diseases in animals and comes from one of the most authorized experts of the period. This hitherto unpublished piece of archive may therefore be considered as particularly relevant to the control of epizootic diseases at the end of the eighteenth century, more particularly of cattle plague, which devastated Europe during all the century. The main measure enforced by the decree is the slaughtering of both diseased and contact animals.
Strangely enough, this document has never been quoted, to my best knowledge, in the numerous historical studies dedicated either to Bourgelat or to cattle plague, including those written by the contemporaries. Moreover, it never materialized in the official legislation against epizootic diseases in the subsequent decades. Notwithstanding, following my initial discovery, I was able to find another copy of Bourgelat draft decree in the historical archives of the Société Royale de Médecine (French Royal Society of Medicine), headed by the famous and influential physician Félix Vicq d’Azyr (1748-1794), another authority in the fields of both animal and comparative medicine. Most interestingly, to this copy are attached very severe comments of the draft decree, from two different sources, which may account for its merciless rejection by French officials. The very wording of the critics also points out to a possible conflict between the founder of the veterinary schools and the raising Société Royale de Médecine.
In the present study, I first replace the draft decree in the context of the recent episodes of cattle plague in France and review the different conceptions which then confronted in the control of epizootics. I then analysed the draft decree on a technical ground with respect to the current knowledge and the possible alternatives of the time. I lastly examine critically the varied, and generally harsh, comments from the contemporaries trying to sort out those stemming from a genuine scientific standpoint and those stirred up by pure animosity against an ageing man, Bourgelat, who then had seemingly lost much of his previous aura.
Strangely enough, this document has never been quoted, to my best knowledge, in the numerous historical studies dedicated either to Bourgelat or to cattle plague, including those written by the contemporaries. Moreover, it never materialized in the official legislation against epizootic diseases in the subsequent decades. Notwithstanding, following my initial discovery, I was able to find another copy of Bourgelat draft decree in the historical archives of the Société Royale de Médecine (French Royal Society of Medicine), headed by the famous and influential physician Félix Vicq d’Azyr (1748-1794), another authority in the fields of both animal and comparative medicine. Most interestingly, to this copy are attached very severe comments of the draft decree, from two different sources, which may account for its merciless rejection by French officials. The very wording of the critics also points out to a possible conflict between the founder of the veterinary schools and the raising Société Royale de Médecine.
In the present study, I first replace the draft decree in the context of the recent episodes of cattle plague in France and review the different conceptions which then confronted in the control of epizootics. I then analysed the draft decree on a technical ground with respect to the current knowledge and the possible alternatives of the time. I lastly examine critically the varied, and generally harsh, comments from the contemporaries trying to sort out those stemming from a genuine scientific standpoint and those stirred up by pure animosity against an ageing man, Bourgelat, who then had seemingly lost much of his previous aura.