[Veterinarians--notables of the cities and the country. Some stages in their social ascent from the second half of the 18th century to the start of the 20th century].

During the second half of the 18th century scientific veterinary medicine, a new profession was born as a result of economic and military needs--losses of cattle as a consequence of infectious diseases and the growing demand for treatment to be given to the horses of the armies. At first the members of the emerging occupation, who are generally of very modest origin, hardly differ from the traditional actors of animal health. At the beginning of the 19th century the governments employ a large number of veterinarians for official missions to combat infectious diseases. As from the second half of the 19th century the skills of the veterinarians as doctors for animals and zootechnicians are beginning to be recognized by the rural population, whose increased income allows them more easily to enlist a veterinarian's services. From the 1860s onwards they also start to play a role in the monitoring of public health by controlling foodstuffs of animal origin. But it is only at the beginning of the 20th century that new technological progress, motor vehicles and the telephone (first in the cities, then in the country by way of telephone boxes), makes their work quicker and more efficient. New and strong antiseptics for external and internal use which help to combat many infectious diseases will however appear only around the 1950s.