History of Veterinary Medicine

Volume 2 | Issue 1 Article 1 1939 History of Veterinary Medicine Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/iowastate_veterinarian Part of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, and the Veterinary Medicine Commons Recommended Citation (1939) "History of Veterinary Medicine," Iowa State University Veterinarian: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/iowastate_veterinarian/vol2/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Iowa State University Veterinarian by an authorized editor of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. History of V eterinary ~Iedicine HE birth of veterinary art probably the verb form as "veheri" to draw, and T preceded that of human medicine. In defines the term in "bestia veterinus" as biological existence, food is the primitive "any animal that works with a yoke." requirement. Veterinary medicine sus Other etymologists give a Celtic ongm tains life; human medicine preserves it. from "vieh", cattle, and "terrin" to be Upon domestication of animal life, sick. diseases which were not before apparent As with the origin of the name of the became rampant and it logically fell to the profession, there is a controversy as to shepherds and herdsmen to care for the who is Father of the Profession. Some sick animals. These early husbandmen would have Hippocrates given this dis were not long in discovering the pitfalls tinction. Others believe that Galen should of their undertaking. Their weapons in be considered due to his insistence of meat attacking the diseased conditions con inspection. The general opinion is that fronting them were magic, prayers, im Vegetius is generally considered the precations, incantations, and other bar Father of Veterinary Medicine. He was baric rites practiced as cures preceding author of four books on diseases of horses the primitive studies of. animal medicine. and cattle in which he urged disregard of divine discipline as the cause of diseases Ancient Practice and incantations as their cure. It is found from the Bible that the ancient Jews and Egyptians knew many Dark Ages forms of animal diseases. Moses establish From the time of Galen through the ed a system of meat inspection which is 12th century there was a period of in still practiced by the Jewish people in activity in all science and art. These our modern packing houses. Hippocrates years are known as the Dark Ages. The (460-337 B. C.) described hydrothorax in Church forbade dissection and autopsies oxen, sheep, and swine and mentioned the and confiscated and destroyed much of the dislocation of the hip joint of cattle fol literature on the subject of Veterinary lowing a lean winter. Aristotle (384-326 Medicine. During this time no new litera B. C.) discovered some of the diseases of ture was written. The only work that swine, dogs, cattle, horses, asses, and ele was done was by the Arabs in Spain. Be phants. In his description of the diseases cause of their love of the horse and excel of the dog he gave an excellent descrip lent horsemanship, they were interested tion of rabies. Gen. Xenophon (349-259 in the diseases of the horse and had all B. C.) wrote a treatise on horses and available literature translated into Arabic. horsemanship in which was emphasized In the 12th and 13th centuries simu diseases and care of the feet. Thus from taneously with the Rennaissance of the this bit of ancient history it is seen that Fine Arts there was a revival of interest Veterinary Medicine had its beginning in the medical sciences. A nobleman by with the ancients. the name of Rufus in the 12th or 13th As to the word "Veterinary", little is century wrote "De Medicina Equorum". definitely known of its etymology. It is He excelled in ability of his successors a pleonastic freak that has crept in and has for nearly 400 years. The volume was a no medical significance and no medical tabulation of original observations with no origin. Verrius Flaccus, 14 A. D. gives reference to previous literature. He con- 6 The Veterinary Student sidered all superstitions, fables, and as horse, horsemanship, pharmacy, special trological influences on disease as non pathology, surgery, and the principles of sense. Many terms coined by him per sanitation policies. The devastating sist to this day. plagues gave students a chance to show About this time the printing press was the value of scientific training, as crude invented. This gave great impetus to the as it was. As a result of its apparent value publications of works in all fields of litera Louis XV made Lyons a Royal School ture, scientific and otherwise. An Italian and established a second school at AHort in 1598 by the name of Ruini Bologna in 1765 and made Bourgelat director of all wrote the first anatomy. LaFosse, a veterinary education in France. Other Frenchman, about 200 years later publish schools were established in rapid succes ed a second anatomy which was very sion: good. LaFosse's book was the first one that had colored plates. There is some Dres::'e, 1776 Berne 1808 now Leipzij! Zurich 1820 controversy as to the scientific attitude of Copenhagen 1777 Stockholm 1821 this man. He was a gentleman and a Hannover 1777 Utrecht 1821 Vienna 1777 gdinburgh (Dick) 1823 student of both human and equine anato Budapest 1786 Toulouse 1825 my, but Merillat claims that he was just Berlin 1790 Giessen 1828 a horseman and a farrier. There were Munich 1790 Ontario 1862 Glasgow 1862 many other good books on horses during London 1791 the 17th and 18th centuries; however, they were mostly good farrier books, not Subjects Taught being books of scientific fact. In England up until the middle of the 18th century It might be of some interest to note the there was nothing written that had any subjects taught in the European schools. resemblance of scientific fact. In 1751 The instances to be cited are from the Ger Gibson published a book on diseases of man schools, which are typical. The Pre horses which was original and accurate in Veterinary subjects are much more clas its observations. sical, including Greek, Latin, French, and English. While the Veterinary colleges European Schools themselves teach very much the same subjects as are taught here in the United In the 18th century there were many States, there is a slight difference in the plagues among the domestic animals of method of examinations, the students not Europe. These were: rinderpest, anth being examined every semester but at the rax, blackleg, sheep pox, scabies, glanders, end of the third and fourth semesters and contagious pleuro-pneumonia, strangles, at the end of the course. The examination tetanus and wound infections. at the end of the course is a very compre Economic losses of these plagues were hensive examination. The total cost of a enormous and brought to the public eye veterinary education in Germany is the need for a college of Veterinary Medi around $12,000. Upon completion of the cine. The first college was established college course one is not given the title of in Lyons, France in 1762. It was in charge Doctor. A thesis must be submitted to of Bourgelot, a young lawyer who had the authorities after leaving school before forsaken law because he won a case that the title of Doctor is conferred. he thought not just. He received govern ment aid for this college and it was estab Veterinary Medicine In U. S. lished in an old house that had been a hotel. There were 38 students its first In the United States the development year, among them were Danes, Swedes, of veterinary medicine was quite slow un Austrians, Prussians, Sardinians, Swiss, til the latter part of the 19th century. and French. The subjects taught were: During the colonial period there was Zootomy, especially the exterior of a no special need for emphasis on veterinary Fall-I939 7 medicine since the country was sparsely leaf pine (tick country) into or through settled and free from epizootics of any the state of North Carolina. This is the magnitude. Not until after the Revolu first legislative act ever passed in connec tionary War did epizootics appear. tion with animal diseases in the United Prior to that time the horses, cattle, and States. Several states followed with simi other domestic animals brought here by lar acts. Dr. James Mease, a physician, the early colonists were treated and cared was the first to study this disease. for by their owners. Later as the num ber of domestic animals increased, certain First Veterinarians individuals who were, or at least thought According to Sir Frederick Smith, the they were, more proficient in diagnosing first graduate veterinarian to come to and treating the ailments of animals be America and establish a practice was gan devoting more of their time to this Charles Clark in 1817. A Prussian gradu new profession. ate, John Rose, came to New York in 1827 There existed at this time two types of but little is known about his life. Later animal doctors, the farrier, who dwelt C. C. Grice, R. H. Curtis, A. Lockhart, and more with the problems of horses, and the C. Pilgrim, all graduates of the London cowleech, who treated cows and other school settled on the eastern coast. Popu forms of livestock. Although the farrier lar non-graduates deserving mention here considered himself far superior to the were the Saunders in Massachusetts, Dr.

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