The first Polish legal regulations on veterinary medicine date back to the second half of the 18th century. In 1774, a parliamentary constitution was passed obliging doctors to supervise hospital revirs in order to prevent the spread of cattle and sheep blight. In 1780, the Royal Commission of Good Order issued 46 laws regulating the slaughter of animals and the meat trade. The period of the Duchy of Warsaw brought the first normative act devoted exclusively to aspects of animal health protection - the 'Regulations for the Rescue of Horned Cattle in Present Diseases, together with Measures Sufficient to Safeguard them from Immediate Multiplication of Mortality'. In 1844, the 'Veterinary Police Act' was issued in Warsaw. This was the first piece of legislation detailing the scope of tasks performed by the state administration bodies responsible for veterinary matters. At the time of the loss of statehood in the Polish lands, the law of the partitioners was in force. The veterinary service on Polish soil at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries developed differently in each of the three partitions, which also applied to legal regulations. Regaining independence in 1918 led to the unification of the functioning of the veterinary administration and the introduction of new legal solutions.