Review of "Healing the Herds: Disease, Livestock Economies, and the Globalization of Veterinary Medicine" edited by Karen Brown and Daniel Gilfoyle

Abstract

Review Through a series of 14 case studies, this multi-authored book examines the history of veterinary medicine and, particularly, the emergence of veterinary services and disease control programs in relation to livestock trade. For the case studies covering China, Australia, and New Zealand, and selected countries in South East Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, the focus is the colonial era up to the early 1960s or earlier. The case studies often show how advances in veterinary science from the late nineteenth century and technologies such as vaccines enabled large-scale disease control or eradication programs. For countries experiencing these programs for the first time, however, the book proposes that the primary objectives were related to colonial expansion and aims such as the protection of livestock on colonial farms, export trade and, at times, to support the appropriation of land. Only three of the case studies in the book deal with veterinary-related topics in pastoralist areas in Australia and Kenya (two chapters). David Anderson’s chapter on livestock marketing and colonial ambitions, between 1918 and 1948, clearly lays out the broader economic context within which livestock disease control programs were designed and implemented at that time. This chapter also presents a good overview of debates around overstocking and compulsory and voluntary destocking. The chapter by Lotte Hughes describes the forced displacement of Maasai communities from land that was thought to have a lower risk of East Coast fever and therefore was the preferred land for settler cattle. The common theme in these three chapters is the tension between the differing priorities of local herd owners, and those of governments and state veterinary services, and the imposition of disease control strategies often by force. A fourth chapter by Saverio Kratli deals with the history of cattle Catley Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice 2011, 1:12 http://www.pastoralismjournal.com/content/1/1/12