• From Ayurvedic texts to botanical medicines to genomics, ideas and expertise about veterinary healing have circulated between cultures through travel, trade, and conflict.

    In this broad-ranging and accessible study spanning 400 years of history, Susan D.

    Jones and Peter A. Koolmees present the first global history of veterinary medicine and animal healing.

    Drawing on inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspectives, this book addresses how attitudes toward animals, disease causation theories, wars, problems of food insecurity and the professionalization and spread of European veterinary education have shaped new domains for animal healing, such as preventive medicine in intensive animal agriculture and the need for veterinarians specializing in zoo animals, wildlife, and pets.

    It concludes by considering the politicization of animal protection, changes in the global veterinary workforce, and concerns about disease and climate change.

    As mediators between humans and animals, veterinarians and other animal healers have both shaped, and been shaped by, the social, cultural, and economic roles of animals over time.

  • Introduction: human-animal relationships and the need for veterinary medicine;

    1. Animal healing in sacred societies, 1500-1700;

    2. Animal healing in trade and conquest, 1700-1850s;

    3. Formal education for animal healing: from riding schools to veterinary schools, 1700-1850;

    4. Veterinary institutions and animal plagues, 1800-1900;

    5. Veterinary medicine in war and peace, 1900-1960;

    6. Food, animals and veterinary care in a changing world, 1960-2000;

    7. Veterinary medicine and animal health, 2000-2020;

    Epilogue: veterinary medicine in the postmodern world.

  • Susan D. Jones

    Fellow: Awarded 2017

    Field of Study: History of Science, Technology and Economics

    Competition: US & Canada

    One of the few veterinarians in the world with a degree in history of science, Susan D. Jones is a professor in the Program in History of Science and Technology, and the Department of Ecology Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. Her research concentrates on the sociocultural history of veterinary medicine and disease ecology, especially for zoonoses (diseases transmitted between animals and humans).

    She is the author of several articles and two books: Valuing Animals: Veterinarians and their Patients in Modern America; and Death in a Small Package: A Short History of Anthrax (named one of the “Outstanding University Press Books of 2010” by critic Peter Skinner of Foreword Reviews). She has served on several national and international boards and committees; has been invited to lecture in Vienna, Beijing and Cambridge; and has won awards from the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission and the National Science Foundation.

    She will use her Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a new book titled Plague Homelands: Disease and Colonialism in the Eurasian Borderlands. Focusing on the ancient cradle of bubonic plague in Eurasia, the book explores how local people and Soviet-era scientists understood plague’s human-animal ecology and tried to control the disease. The history of plague in its Eurasian homeland holds many lessons as we struggle to balance the health of people with the health of ecosystems today.


    Prof. Dr. Peter Koolmees

    Science historian

    Prof. Dr. Peter Koolmees is professor by special appointment of Veterinary Medicine in Historical and Social Context at the Faculties of Humanities and Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University.

    He studied history in Utrecht and obtained his PhD with the thesis Symbols of public hygiene: municipal slaughterhouses in the Netherlands 1795-1940 . He has worked at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine since 1973, currently as a lecturer-researcher in the field of veterinary public health and legal knowledge and the history of veterinary medicine at the Veterinary Public Health division of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS). Since 2002 he has also been curator of the Veterinary Medicine department of the University Museum and since 2006 he has been a member of the Descartes Center at Utrecht University.

    In addition to his original research field of food safety, Koolmees has published on the history of veterinary medicine in general and the history of veterinary public health in particular. He is editor of the veterinary historical journal Argos and of History of Medicine . In the period 2000-2004 he was president of the World Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine and was re-elected to this position in 2008. In 1999 he received the George Sarton medal from Ghent University for his contribution to the history of science.

    Prof. Dr. Peter Koolmees (1954) is honorary professor Veterinary Medicine in Historical and Societal Context at the Faculty of Humanities and Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University. He studied history in Utrecht and obtained his doctorate with the thesis Symbols of public hygiene; municipal slaughterhouses in the Netherlands 1795-1940. Since 1973 Koolmees is active at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, currently as teacher-researcher in the area of veterinary public health and veterinary legislation and history of veterinary medicine at the Division Veterinary Public Health of the Institute for Risk Assessment Sciences (IRAS). He is also curator of the Section Departement Veterinary Medicine from the University Museum Utrecht since 2002, and member of the Descartes Centre (UU) since 2006.

    Next to food safety, his original field of research, Koolmees published on the history of veterinary medicine in general and especially the history of veterinary public health. He is editor of the veterinary historical journal Argos and of History of Medicine. Between 2000 and 2004 he was chairman of the World Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine for which was re-elected in 2008. In 1999 he received the George Sarton medal of Gent University for his contributions to the history of science.

Veterinary Clinics of North America
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