Pioneer Science and the Great Plagues New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond
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PIONEER SCIENCE AND THE GREAT PLAGUES NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HUMAN-ANIMAL BOND Series editors: Alan M. Beck and Marguerite E. O’Haire, Purdue University A dynamic relationship has always existed between people and animals. Each influences the psychological and physiological state of the other. This series of scholarly publications, in collaboration with Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, expands our knowledge of the interrelationships between people, animals, and their environment. Manuscripts are welcomed on all aspects of human-animal interaction and welfare, including therapy applications, public policy, and the application of humane ethics in managing our living resources. Other titles in this series: The Canine-Campus Connection: Roles for Dogs in the Lives of College Students Mary Renck Jalongo (Ed.) Cats and Conservationists: The Debate Over Who Owns the Outdoors Dara M. Wald and Anna L. Peterson That Sheep May Safely Graze: Rebuilding Animal Health Care in War-Torn Afghanistan David M. Sherman Transforming Trauma: Resilience and Healing Through Our Connections With Animals Philip Tedeschi and Molly Anne Jenkins (Eds.) A Reason to Live: HIV and Animal Companions Vicki Hutton Animal-Assisted Interventions in Health Care Settings: A Best Practices Manual for Establishing New Programs Sandra B. Barker, Rebecca A. Vokes, and Randolph T. Barker Moose! The Reading Dog Laura Bruneau and Beverly Timmons Leaders of the Pack: Women and the Future of Veterinary Medicine Julie Kumble and Donald F. Smith Exploring the Gray Zone: Case Discussions of Ethical Dilemmas for the Veterinary Technician Andrea DeSantis Kerr, Robert “Pete” Bill, Jamie Schoenbeck Walsh, and Christina V. Tran (Eds.) Pet Politics: The Political and Legal Lives of Cats, Dogs, and Horses in Canada and the United States Susan Hunter and Richard A. Brisbin, Jr. Free Market Dogs: The Human-Canine Bond in Post-Communist Poland Michał Piotr Pręgowski and Justyna Włodarczyk (Eds.) PIONEER SCIENCE AND THE GREAT PLAGUES How Microbes, War, and Public Health Shaped Animal Health Norman F. CHEVILLE Copyright 2021 by Purdue University Press. Printed in the United States of America. Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-61249-656-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-61249-642-9 (paperback) An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of librar- ies working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high-quality books Open Access for the public good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 978-1-61249-702-0. Cover photo: Veterinary Pathology class, Iowa State College, 1929. From author’s collection. CONTENTS Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Part i. Prologue 1 1. The Veterinary Schools of Europe 3 2. Edward Jenner: Zoologist, Physician, Pioneer 9 3. William Dick: From Farrier to Veterinarian in Edinburgh 13 4. The Science Giants of 1860: Pasteur, Virchow, and Darwin 15 5. Robert Koch: Game Change 19 Part ii. Farrier to Veterinarian 23 6. Emigrants West: Ohio Country, Iowa Territory, and Tejas 24 7. The Canadian Midwest: Divergence of Lower and Upper Canada 32 8. Pioneers in the Midwest Frontier: Physicians in Veterinary Practice 37 9. New Plagues, Civil War, and the United States Department of Agriculture 42 10. Agriculture and Veterinary Science in the Midwest 50 Part iii. Pioneering Veterinary Education 59 11. Urban East Versus Rural West: Montreal and New York Diss Toronto and Iowa 60 12. The Pioneer State Colleges: Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Cornell 66 13. Plagues and the Bureau of Animal Industry 78 14. Bacteriology in the Heartland 85 15. The 1890s: Horse Markets and Enrollments Drop 92 Part iv. Livestock and Veterinarians Go West 103 16. Private Veterinary Schools: Chicago, Kansas City, and Indianapolis 105 17. Public Veterinary Schools: The Second-Generation Pioneers 108 18. The Bureau of Animal Industry and Hog Cholera 117 19. Veterinary Education, Charles Stange, and the Flexner Report 124 20. World War I: Biowarfare, Prejudice, and the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps 130 vi CONTENTS Part v. Ascendance 139 21. Agricultural Depression Amidst a National Boom: The 1920s 140 22. 1929: Prelude to Bad Times 147 23. Public Health and Distrust of Government: The Tuberculin War 152 24. A Depression Paradox: Culture and Science 158 25. New Deal: Discoveries in Infectious Disease 161 Part vi. Duty Required 167 26. War: The Home Front 168 27. Veterinary Corps and Bioterror 176 28. Postwar Investigations of Enemy Biological Warfare 181 29. Prelude to the Science Revolution 187 30. The Atomic Age 196 Part vii. Transformation 205 31. New Programs, New Laboratories: Malaria, Polio, and New Viruses 207 32. Comparative Medicine: Models for Leukemia 210 33. Grassroots Mandates: The National Research Centers for Livestock Diseases 216 34. Old Plagues in the Wild: The National Wildlife Centers 223 35. New Plagues: Scrapie, Mad Cow Disease, and the Prion 232 Part viii. Epilogue 237 36. The Farm Crises of 1980–1995: Distrust of Science 239 37. The Gender Shift 242 38. Biopolitics 247 39. Bioterror, Anthrax, and the National Animal Health Networks 255 40. Anti-Science Scams and Keys to Progress 264 Appendixes 273 Notes 291 Index 331 About the Author 359 PREFACE nimal health care in North America evolved from farriers and itiner- A ant cow leeches to science-based veterinary medicine in one century, from 1860 to 1960. This history focuses on the scientists and institutions that pioneered veterinary education and research. It memorializes the events and ideas that propelled science forward and those that blocked progress. An important part of the story is how cycles of discovery were enhanced or retarded by viability of the economy, by demands of war, and by idiosyncrasies of polit- ical culture — elements of society that are linked together. Veterinary science in the rural Midwest arose from agriculture, but in urban Philadelphia it came from medicine; similar differences occurred in Canada between Toronto and Montreal. The Iowa Agricultural College was the first to establish a state-supported school of veterinary medicine in the United States that survived; its first scientists were agriculturalists and its graduates founded colleges and departments of veterinary medicine in the Midwest, Great Plains, Atlantic Seaboard, South, and the Palouse of the Northwest. In contrast, the University of Pennsylvania veterinary school was established as a cooperative venture with the medical school; its first science faculty were physicians who brought home the medical sciences from Europe. As land grant colleges were established after the American Civil War, indi- vidual states followed divergent pathways in supporting veterinary science: one, a trade school curriculum that taught agriculturalists to empirically treat animal diseases; the other, a curriculum tied to science. The relevance of this, a pattern continued for a century, is that today some institutions have moved back to the trade school philosophy. Avoiding lessons of the 1910 Flexner Report on medical education reform, university-associated veterinary schools are being approved that do not have control of their own veterinary hospitals, diagnostic laboratories, and research institutes, components that are critical for training students in science. Underlying this change were twin idiosyncra- sies of culture — disbelief in science and distrust of government — that spawned scientology, creationism, anti-vaccination movements, and other anti-science viii PREFACE scams. All of these scalawags had destructive impacts on science in general and in veterinary medicine in particular. And there were other bogeymen within science: fraudulent scientists that stole the work of others, dishonest entrepre- neurs, and latter-day snake oil salesmen. The most recent impact on veterinary science has been the ascendance of women. Not permitted to study for the profession in early times, female students exploded after World War II, from near 0 in 1960 to nearly 90 percent of all veterinary school graduates in 2000. Women continue to play an increasing role in scientific research in the great plagues: veterinarian Amy Vincent, a scien- tist at the National Animal Disease Center, was awarded membership in the National Academy of Medicine in 2020 for her work on surveillance, vaccines, and the pandemic potential of swine influenza models. This book covers the century when the infectious diseases anthrax, tuberculosis, smallpox, tetanus, plague, and polio were conquered and illu- minates the important role that veterinary research played in that battle. The narrative is driven by astonishing events that centered on animal disease: the influenza pandemic of 1872, discovery of the causes of anthrax and tuberculosis in 1880s, the conquest of Texas cattle fever and then yellow fever, the German anthrax attacks on the U.S. during World War I, the tuberculin war of 1931, Japanese biological warfare in the 1940s, and today’s bioterror dangers. These events illustrate how progress in biomedical science comes and goes in cycles. From 1860 to 1960, new investigative techniques appeared, shined brightly, and were replaced by technologies that were more advanced. When seminal discoveries were made, each generation of scientists was presented with new opportunities that lasted decades. This is the story of how pioneer veterinary scientists contributed to and capitalized on those discoveries for one century. Norman Cheville January 2021 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS am grateful to