Cattle, Priests, and Progress in Medicine

Abstract

This book, an amplification of invited lectures given at Carleton College and the University of Minnesota in 1977, is really three-books-in-one (in five chapters). The first section describes the historic and anthropologic character of mankind's (continuing) relationship with symbiotic, and later domesticated, herd-animals; the second part traces “comparative healing” (the technical and religio-philosophical interdependance of animal and human medicine) from pre-dynastic, nilotic Egypt, Mesoptamia, Iran and India through the classic Egyptian period to the Greeks, Arabs, the Salerno School, the Renaissance and the foundation of both modern veterinary and human medicine. The final segment concerns itself with veterinary contributions (often unrecognized or neglected) to human medicine and welfare combined with the author's concept of a synergistic educational blend, a truly “Comparative Medicine,” and how it could be applied to the problem of biomedical research-training. Readers who liked “King Tut” will be enchanted by the treasure-trove of the first and second sections (three chapters), which are based both upon a review and interpretation of published works and in part on the author's travels.