Healing the Herds

Karen Brown is currently an ESRC Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford. She has published a number of papers that deal with environmental and veterinary history in South Africa.Daniel Gilfoyle specializes in the veterinary history of Africa and works in Research and Collections at the National Archives in London.

"The history of veterinary medicine told from anything other than a triumphalist perspective, usually with a nationalist slant, is rare. Essays in this outstanding collection cover rural as well as urban issues in veterinary disease and science from the eighteenth century to the present. The book will attract a wide range of readers from veterinary historians to all those interested in why livestock has been and is important to society." "This volume represents a compelling call to broaden the territory covered by the history of veterinary medicine and animal health and it is essential reading for those interested in these topics. More broadly, some of its essays should inform studies of colonialism in the modern period, which have too often neglected to examine agriculture, foodways, and notions of environment, health, and disease." (Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences) "The essays collected in Healing the Herds are most welcome additions to the existing scholarship on the history of veterinary medicine and livestock disease. The volume should be mandatory reading for specialists in these fields. Those concerned with eighteenth- through twentieth-century colonialism, European state building, and the ecological dynamics of Old World expansion will also find much on offer here." (H-Environment) "The fine collection compiled by Karen Brown and Daniel Gilfoyle proves that a comparative history of veterinary medicine can be compelling.…By taking the story out of the laboratory and focusing on the political economy of disease and control, they show its significance well beyond animals and vets." (Journal of Historical Geography)