The development of veterinary medicine in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic is evaluated on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first lectures on veterinary science at Charles University in Prague (1784). Efforts to found a special veterinary school in Prague date back to the beginning of the 19th century; more than 20 petitions and interpellations concerning the establishment of such a school had been presented to the Bohemian Diet and the Imperial Parliament since 1841. The efforts for the establishment of this school were gradually conjoined with the national-revivalist and national-liberation movement. However, the veterinary university was established only in 1918, in Brno, when Czechoslovakia won independence. The development of veterinary medicine in the territory of today's Czechoslovakia is appreciated positively, mainly in the last 100 years. However, it was only after 1948--in the process of the transition from small-scale farming to large-scale socialist agricultural production--that all the needed practical and economic conditions were created for the development of veterinary medicine. The veterinary service was nationalized in 1951 and adequate material and technical backgrounds were built. Another veterinary university schools was introduced, and post-graduate studies and veterinary extension activities were started.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)