Meeting Demands for Animal Healthcare: Veterinary Medicine in Rural Southern Ontario, 1862-1939

Before veterinarians populated the countryside, people had limited access to health knowledge and relied on experienced neighbours or medical doctors to practice animal healthcare. Jody’s dissertation examines the interdependence between animal, human, and environmental health to show advancements in public health and the role veterinary medicine had in shaping our current understanding of modern medicine and healthcare practices. It does this by exploring four key developments that occurred between 1862, with the establishment of the Ontario Veterinary College, and 1939: the production of animal health knowledge in popular sources, the need for veterinary intervention with unrecognizable diseases that could transfer from animals to humans, the popularity of quack medicine, and the technological advancements available with the rise of professionalization.