Veterinary medicine is the branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both domesticated and wild, with a wide range of conditions which can affect different species.
Veterinary medicine is widely practiced, both with and without professional supervision. Professional care is most often led by a veterinary physician (also known as a vet, veterinary surgeon or veterinarian), but also by paraveterinary workers such as veterinary nurses or technicians. This can be augmented by other paraprofessionals with specific specialisms such as animal physiotherapy or dentistry, and species relevant roles such as farriers.
Veterinary science helps human health through the monitoring and control of zoonotic disease (infectious disease transmitted from non-human animals to humans) and veterinary scientists often collaborate with epidemiologists.
History
Equine" portable operating table in its vertically oriented position during World War I
The Egyptian Papyrus of Kahun (1900 BCE) and Vedic literature in ancient India offer one of the first written records of veterinary medicine. (See also Shalihotra) One of the edicts of Ashoka reads: "Everywhere King Piyadasi (Asoka) made two kinds of medicine available, medicine for people and medicine for animals. Where there were no healing herbs for people and animals, he ordered that they be bought and planted."
In Europe, the first attempts to organize and regulate the practice of treating animals tended to focus on horses because of their economic significance. In the Middle Ages, farriers combined their work in shoeing and generally caring for horses' hooves with "horse doctoring". In 1356, the Lord Mayor of London, concerned at the poor standard of care given to horses in the city, requested that all farriers operating within a seven mile radius of the City of London form a "fellowship" to regulate and improve their practices. This ultimately led to the establishment of the Worshipful Company of Farriers in 1674. Meanwhile, Carlo Ruini's book Anatomia del Cavallo, (Anatomy of the Horse) was published in 1598. It was the first comprehensive treatise on the anatomy of a non-human species.
The first veterinary college in Europe had been founded in Lyon, France in 1762 by Claude Bourgelat. In the ensuing 20 years similar colleges were established in other European cities. The Veterinary College of London was founded in 1791 by a group led by Granville Penn, a grandson of William Penn. In the United States, the first veterinarians had been trained in Europe. However, Boston, New York and Philadelphia all had their own private veterinary schools by the 1850s. These urban schools concentrated primarily on the care of horses. By the turn of the 20th century, several American agricultural colleges had started their own veterinary schools which were focused on livestock animals. In 1879, Iowa Agricultural College became the first land grant college to establish a school of veterinary medicine.
