Louise Hill Curth, The Care of Brute Beasts

The writings of medical historians have one thing in common: they focus on human beings. Louise Hill Curth's book, The Care of Brute Beasts, breaks this anthropocentric tradition, by exploring the medical beliefs and practices associated with ill animals in early modern England. Using vernacular medical manuals and almanacs from the period 1500–1800, the author challenges the common notion that ‘a system of veterinary medicine ... did not exist in England before the late eighteenth century’ (p. 142). She demonstrates that when animals fell sick in this period, they were treated by an array of ‘professional’ and lay healers, ranging from elite horse farriers, who had acquired their veterinary skills during a seven-year apprenticeship, to ordinary housewives and husbandmen, who relied on their own practical experience with animals when providing treatments. Thus, the concept of a ‘medical marketplace’, which hitherto has been applied only to the medical care of people, can be extended to encompass all varieties of animals, from pigs and poultry, to cows and horses. As with humans, the physic administered to animals was based on the ‘honoured ancient Greek principles of health and illness’ (p. 4): it involved preventing the accumulation of excess humours by regulating the patient's external environment, or purging the noxious humours through the use of laxatives, vomits and phlebotomy. But there were some differences between the medicines of humans and animals—for instance, the ingredients used in veterinary remedies tended to be cheaper and more accessible, and instead of using lancets for letting blood, heavier instruments called ‘fleams’ were used, which could cut more easily through an animal's thick skin and fur. The author argues convincingly that the fundamental motivation behind veterinary physic in this period was to ‘keep animals healthy so that they could continue to provide benefits to mankind’ in the form of labour, food and other by-products. But she adds that these economic concerns did not ‘negate the many moral and ethical reasons behind helping sick animals’ (p. 2)

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