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My PhD thesis: The Civil Veterinary Departments of British India 1876-1947: Science, medicine, power and ... Elephants transporting heavy artillery to a hill station, c. 1935 ...
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1. Civil Veterinary Material in the NLS India Papers Collection A previously neglected resource for historical research
2. Overview of the paper
The wider significance of the veterinary material
Its specific significance to my research project
3. Outcomes of the Collaboration My PhD thesis: The Civil Veterinary Departments of British India 1876-1947: Science, medicine, power and nature in a colonial context.
Veterinary Medicine and Animal Health in British India phase of The Medical History of British India online resource.
www.nls.uk/indiapapers/index.html
4. Overview of the Material 1.) Veterinary Diseases Collection
2.) Civil Veterinary Department (Central)
3.) Civil Veterinary Departments (Provincial)
4.) Veterinary Colleges and Laboratories
5. Indian Eco-Regions
6. Historical Debates 1. Questioning the Civil in the Civil Veterinary Service
2. Veterinary medicine & metropolitan profit
3. Indigenous mediation of veterinary policy
7. Elephants transporting heavy artillery to a hill station, c. 1935
8. 1.) Military work, civil cost? [This is] another sign of the rampant militarism under which India groans, while the soil cries out for improvement
- Indian Agriculturalist (1886)
The CVDs were not intended to help veterinary investigation, much less serve the cause of Indian agriculture
-Deepak Kumar (2006)
Colonial veterinary activities began, and continued for much of the colonial period, in a military context
-Diana Davis (2005)
9. Reports on animal disease A note on surra [trypanosomiasis] in camels for commandants of camel corps- HE Cross, Lahore, 1914
Report on his [Steels] investigation intofatal disease among transport mules in British Burma- JH Steel, 1885
Elephants and their diseases- GH Evans, 1910
Report on horse surra- Alfred Lingard, 1893
10. Animal Draught Power- Figures from 1938 The whole of Indian cultivation rests on the bovine population
Total bovine value- 750m
Total livestock value- 1,500 million -more than estimated annual crop value
Source: R.G. Allan Agriculture- Crops, Farmers and Departments (ICS Probationers Manual, 1938)
11. Dual military/civil functions- Camels
Camels vital to civil transportation
A new laboratory at Sowaha (1923) allowed CVD activities to become more closely identified with the needs of the district
Source: Punjab CVD, A Short History of Surra Treatment in the Punjab, Indian Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, Vol. 4, 1934
12. Dual civil/military function- Horses Horses work the land at depots in Babugarh and Hapore
Classes in harness making and ploughing
Prizes at Quetta horse show
[I hope] that in the course of a year or two, Beluchis will utilise nothing else but broad mares on the land
13. 2.) CVDs and Economic Imperatives Metropolitan profit or indigenous prosperity?
Economic or humanitarian concerns?
Safeguarding revenue or ameliorating famine?
14. Famine & the Raj Famine increased under British rule
90 major famines in previous 2,000 years
66% occurred since 1701
15. Raymond Crotty (2001) A narrow focus on disease prevention
Natural demographic control mechanism of animal disease removed
Overgrazing
Animal malnutrition
16. Raymond Crotty (2001) Veterinary medicine allowed animals to survive at ever lower levels of nutrition
Malnourished animals provided less nourishment for people
Human medicine allowed people to survive at ever lower levels of nutrition
17. Daniel Hall, Veterinarians as officers of animal health Prophylactic rather than curative medicine
Dealing with the root cause of disease- malnutrition
Greater emphasis on fodder cultivation and pasture management
18. Daniel Hall, Veterinarians as officers of animal healthIndian Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Husbandry, 1934 British veterinarians in the metropole focus on curing disease, rather than animal health
It is only latterly that we have really begun to appreciate what an enormous factor nutrition is in the health of livestock: we do not even know all that is yet necessary
20. Treatment: Rinderpest
21. Treatment- Foot and Mouth
22. Treatment- Charbon Symptomatique
23. Overall Results 3, 293 animals treated by VGs
Success rate- 55%
634 animals treated by owners
Success rate 77%
24. Summary Tentative conclusions:
The CVDs were not merely civil institutions carrying out military work
A narrow focus on curtailing contagious animal diseases was not uniquely colonial
A connection between animal health and nutrition may have been made by colonial veterinarians prior to the 1930s
25. Summary Broader significance of the NLS material:
Contributes to wider debates on the autonomy of colonial scientists
Useful for social-historical research
Can contribute to the environmental history of South Asia