Professionalising animal medicine: the RCVS and Veterinary Surgeons Act, 1881

Located at the intersection of history of science and medicine and history of animals, this project seeks to understand the reasons for and effects of the Veterinary Surgeons Act, 1881. It examines how and why the medical treatment of animals came to be professionally delimited within England, and with what effect upon the human-animal nexus. The history of science and medicine has a methodological tradition of not only writing empirical history, but of making sociologically-derived analysis that explains the origin and embedding of knowledge standards in specialist and public communities. This research will thus cast light on contemporary questions concerning expert and lay knowledge on questions of animal care.