In each subdelegation a physician and several surgeons were appointed by the Intendant (provincial administrator) to study those epidemics that might break out in their canton; they were in constant correspondence with the chief physician of the generalite (treasury subdivision of old France) concerning 'both the reigning disease and the medicinal topography of their canton', and when four or five people succumbed to the same disease, the syndic had to notify the subdelegate, who sent the physician to prescribe the treatment to be administered daily by the surgeons; in more serious cases, the physician of the generalite visited the scene of the outbreak himself.''