[...]... research During the earliest phase of my inquiries into the nature of the human-animal relationship and veterinary medicine, I spent a considerable amount of time in the company of veterinarians—working in urban, rural and mixed veterinary practices in the Netherlands—as a participant observer This proved a fascinating experience and afforded me a great deal of insight into the everyday work and social... underlay the introduction of public slaughterhouses in the Netherlands and the increasingly important role of veterinary meat inspection; and finally, Schwabe (1978) examines early animal medicine and the cattle culture of ancient Sumer and Egypt, employing a considerable amount of comparative anthropological data in his discussion Of the aforementioned authors, only the latter is in fact a veterinarian; the. .. human-animal relations and animal medicine It explores how the scientific enlightenment, urbanisation and the changing nature of social relations influenced the establishment of formal veterinary education, heralding the birth of the veterinary profession in Europe This chapter thus looks at the gradual formalisation and intensification of the veterinary regime In this regard, it also examines the emergent... numerous attempts to explain why— after many thousands of years—our ancestors abandoned scavenging, hunting and gathering in favour of animal husbandry and agriculture In this chapter, I have chosen to outline some of the most influential and interesting of these theories By producing such a synthesis of recent thought on the origins of agriculture and animal domestication, I hope to paint a backdrop for... role of the state in dealing with the epizootic disease that plagued the nations of Europe during the early industrial age Governmental responses to outbreaks of cattle plague in Britain and the Netherlands during the nineteenth century will form the basis of the discussion Chapter 5 continues this tale of state intervention and control into the twentieth century This chapter explores the rapid intensification... changes in the humananimal relationship and the rise of the veterinary regime from the time of animal domestication and the inception of livestock husbandry up until the present day The book, therefore, has an enormous scope and encompasses a huge time-span My discussion is often at the level of the general, rather than the specific I have no pretensions to have written a concise and complete history of human-animal. .. intensification of livestock production during this century and the consequent further intensification of the veterinary regime It examines the increasing risks to animal welfare, health and environment that the increased exploitation of animal resources has posed, discussing the increasingly important role of the state and the inter-nationalisation of animal disease control Further to this, this chapter examines... technological inventions, medical discoveries, changing surgical procedures or the biographies of individual veterinarians, that have generally been the focus of veterinary history, have thus been of far less interest to me In this volume, I have attempted to delineate the rise and intensification of the veterinary regime in terms of phases In short, four successive stages of development of the veterinary. .. artefacts and objects is, however, in itself the source of contention amongst experts The past is continually being reinterpreted in the light of new findings and theories about our ancestors and the way in which they lived What is clear, though, is that the emergence of humankind and its various exploits are, in terms of the history of the Earth as a whole, very recent developments As Marvin Harris succinctly... consequences of failing to do so Leaving such issues aside, I shall now briefly outline the content and structure of this book As a whole, the book is structured in a ‘phaseological’ and thematic fashion The following chapter begins with an examination of animal domestication and the origins of agriculture, and explores the consequences of these developments in terms of human social relations and infectious . of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Utrecht for going over the veterinary and veterinary historical content of my work with a fine-tooth. disease and human society: human-animal relations and the rise of veterinary medicine/ Joanna Swabe. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1 Veterinary