The Veterinarian is Complete!

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After starting our huge scanning project with Volume one back in January 2016, we can finally celebrate the release online of the 75th and final volume of The Veterinarian, free for everyone to read in its entirety. The Veterinarian ran from 1828 to 1902 and offers a fascinating insight into the changing veterinary thought throughout a century filled with experimentation and invention.

Click here to browse The Veterinarian online!

This celebration would not be possible without the hard and meticulous work of our Archive and Digitisation Assistants, Adele Bush (Jan-Dec 2016), Helena Clarkson (Jan 2017-Sep 2018) and Jayna Hirani (Sep 2018-Nov 2020), who together created around 65,000 scans and over 1000 sheets of metadata, listing every article title and author.

Copy of a handbill promoting ‘Pin-Cushion Jenny’, from The Veterinarian, Vol 60 No 4, April 1887

About The Veterinarian

Since the Vet History project was first proposed by RCVS Knowledge, making The Veterinarian available has been a key priority. Launched in 1828 by William Percivall and later joined by William Youatt, both critics of the London Veterinary School and eager for reform, the journal captures the birth and development of the veterinary profession in Britain and its place within the context of an explosive era of scientific discovery.

The Veterinarian was one of the major organs of discussion, debate and dissemination of new veterinary practice and theory in Britain. Each issue will typically contain accounts of specific veterinary cases, summaries of current knowledge on specific diseases or injuries, news of developments in legislation or national events, reviews of new publications, and reports from the numerous local and national veterinary societies.

Beyond the strictly veterinary, the journal also covered wider scientific developments of the time. For example, editorials and articles from 1885-1886 discuss the legal implications of Pasteur’s pioneering treatment of rabies, and early examples of ‘Röntgen photographs’ created using X-rays ‘for want of a better title’ were featured in 1897.

‘Röntgen photograph’ of a rabbit, from The Veterinarian, Vol 70 No 5, May 1897

Helping researchers find what they want

The wealth of information contained in this journal covers a very broad range of subjects and includes contributions from many of the most influential veterinary surgeons working in Britain and its colonies. As such, we have worked hard to make sure researchers can easily find and discover articles most relevant to their interests.

Every issue has been digitised individually, and with a full list of contents and article authors. We have also added tags to each issue for specific ailments, anatomy, and organisations. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most used tag on Vet History is ‘horse’, with 966 items!)

The most frequently used tags in the Digital Collections

Finally, you can also easily search for content within each issue by using the full-text search in the Universal Viewer.

One of our regular users of the Digital Collections, Sandi Howie, who is working to complete her doctoral thesis on the veterinary community in late nineteenth century Scotland, told us:

The addition of the Veterinarian to Vet History’s Digital Collections, and the keyword search facility, is transformative of historical research. Veterinary historians can for the first time readily access this key source material at any time and from anywhere. As a researcher, I can’t thank the RCVS Knowledge team enough.

A labour of love

The most recent member of the RCVS Knowledge team to take on The Veterinarian digitisation is Jayna Hirani. As the person to finally take this project over the finish line, she was both relieved and sorry to see the project end. The painstaking process of scanning, cropping, converting, uploading, tagging and creating metadata required incredible attention to detail, but also allowed Jayna to really delve into the content and get a comprehensive oversight of the concerns and preoccupations of vets in the late nineteenth century.

Jayna noticed that the main issue at this time was legitimising the profession, and protecting its reputation from unqualified practitioners, following the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1881. However, another trend was for articles about strange experiments and discoveries about what was and was not scientifically possible – such as transfusing the milk of a cow into the veins of dogs to treat fever and cholera.

Excerpt of article from The Veterinarian, Volume 52 No 1, January 1879

Highlights

Other highlights suggested by Jayna demonstrate the broad variety of the content in the Journal:

An 1872 account of truffle hunting in France, using ‘pig-greyhounds’ and paying them with acorns!

Article from The Veterinarian, Volume 45 No 3, March 1872

An 1890 poem ‘The Doleful Ballad of Germs’ demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Poem from The Veterinarian, Volume 63 No 11, November 1890

The first photograph to appear in the Veterinarian of an ox afflicted with laminitis.

Photograph from The Veterinarian, Volume 67 No 8, August 1894

Go Explore!

Issues of The Veterinarian received nearly 10,000 views in 2020, so why not explore the journal for yourself and discover articles about every weird and wonderful subject from around the world, captured through the specific lens of nineteenth-century men of letters.

Click here to browse The Veterinarian online

Guest Post – Jane Davidson: Venues of Veterinary History

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As I work through the archive material for my PhD, the people and the places leap off the page and create such a vivid picture of the events I’m reading about. The places, in particular, are striking a chord with me as so many of them are in London, my home for over 20 years. I am fascinated by the history of London buildings and how they chart the rise and fall of different areas over time. The records of meeting venues has had me looking up what these buildings are used for today. Once this lockdown is over, I hope to be able to take a walking tour of the places that are becoming familiar to me as key venues in veterinary history.

At a time when the team at the RCVS are scattered to their homes to work and Belgravia House stands empty, it might seem odd to focus on places and locations. However, from the archives, it is clear that the veterinary profession is a body of people used to being an identifiable presence despite a lack of a permanent home. The RCVS has moved premises and had temporary bases in their history, and this is just a part of the process of professionalisation that will continue with the move from Belgravia House that is planned.

Freemasons’ Tavern

The first recorded venue for meetings of the RCVS is The Freemasons Tavern, in use regularly since 1844. On Great Queen Street in Lincolns Inn Fields, the street is probably known to many now as a quick route from Holborn tube to Covent Garden. I have used this route many times to avoid the inevitable tourist crush at Covent Garden. It’s an unusually wide and open street in an area where the buildings are usually packed in tightly together. The stone used for the buildings on the western side of the street is a very light colour and this adds to the feeling of space. Compared to the narrow streets and damp looking dark red London brick of the surrounding streets, my memories of the street are that it is always sunny. The street houses many buildings related to the Freemasons and this has allowed a coordinated approach to building layout and design, which shows in the street’s different style from the earlier buildings around it. Now the site of the Connaught Rooms, the building of 1844 has been rebuilt several times. A popular meeting place that has been used by many associations, it is perhaps most famous for being the venue for the first meetings of the Football Association. A Freemasons Tavern still exists but is now on Long Acre, just around the corner.

Official notice of the first RCVS Annual General Meeting in The Gazette

The Freemasons Tavern was advertised as the meeting place for the newly formed RCVS. This was put into several papers in London, Edinburgh and Dublin, and the meetings were a mix of private matters for the College but also a way to engage with the public.

Red Lion Square

The minutes of an RCVS meeting in 1846 noted a lack of finance as the reason for the RCVS not having a permanent location for their sole use as a corporation. It was in 1853 that the RCVS made 10 Red Lion Square their first home. A previously notorious area, it had been transformed into a gated square and by the early eighteenth century was used for both residential and professional purposes. The business users were medics and lawyers, and so the veterinary profession was to join established professions in the neighbourhood. From the RCVS building in Red Lion Square, we have the stained glass Coat of Arms of the RCVS and the veterinary schools, which are currently in the reception of Belgravia House. These windows have followed the College through three different buildings over the years, and you can read more about their history elsewhere on this blog.

The Coat of Arms of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, on display in the reception at Belgravia House

The RCVS remained at Red Lion Square for over a century, apart from interruptions during the Second World War when the library remained in Red Lion Square but other RCVS activities were temporarily moved to Wembley. The bombing raids of May 1941 saw the assistant librarian Miss Molly Raymer go to the building to check on it after the night of bombing. More worried about water damage, she reported being met with a torrent of water coming through the library ceiling! Red Lion Square is still there, and the buildings are beautiful, but sadly numbers 9 and 10 are no longer standing. However, it is still worth a visit as, despite more modern buildings taking its place, it still has the air of a grand London garden square.

Painted engraving of Red Lion Square in 1800

Walk the History

A walk between these three places provides a wonderful way to see much of London. Red Lion Square to Horseferry Road is around a 45-minute walk and you can incorporate many London landmarks. The Freemasons Tavern to Red Lion Square is a shorter 10-minute walk. It is possible to spend a pleasant afternoon walking the history of the places of the RCVS from Red Lion Square to Belgravia House – missing out on the need to go to the wartime home of Wembley!

-Jane-

Edward Coleman lectures – a 200-year-old time capsule of veterinary science

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Screenshot of digitised and transcribed version of Coleman’s introductory lecture, on the Digital Collections website

Two hundred years ago today – which was a Monday not a Friday – students attended the Introductory Lecture of the 1821/1822 session at the London Veterinary College, now known as the Royal Veterinary College.

The lecture was delivered by Edward Coleman, Professor of the College, and thanks to notes of the lecture taken by student Edmund Gabriel, we can know exactly what he taught.

Gabriel’s notes from this lecture, and over 70 others, are held in our collections and are now being digitised, transcribed, and made available to all via our Digital Collections.

Plaster bust of Edward Coleman, on display in the Members’ Room at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons

The teacher

Edward Coleman (1766-1839) was a medical surgeon, with no veterinary training, who became head of the veterinary school in 1794, and Principal Veterinary Surgeon to the Army in 1796. He held both posts until his death in 1839. After the sudden death of the College’s first Professor, Charles Vial de St Bel, in 1793, Edward Coleman and William Moorcroft were jointly appointed to rescue the fledgling institution, which was mired in financial difficulties. Moorcroft resigned after only a few weeks, possibly due to a desire to focus on his private practice, or due to conflict with Coleman.

Reports of Coleman describe him as ‘mercurial’, but an intelligent man, and a gifted teacher. However, Frederick Smith, one of his severest critics, complained that his lack of veterinary experience, and fierce resistance to change, impeded the progress of the veterinary profession for decades. What is certain is that Coleman dominated the veterinary sphere in Britain for over 40 years, and greatly contributed to the growth of the profession in the early 19th century. Growth that would eventually lead to its reform and the creation of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

Engraving of the Royal Veterinary College, published in The Farrier and Naturalist journal, January 1828

The course

St Bel’s original plan for the College was a 3-year course, for boarding students, with an admission fee of 20 guineas (equivalent to around £1700 today). During Coleman’s time, the course length was eventually reduced to as little as 3 to 4 months, with the expectation that students would also attend lectures on comparative anatomy and pathology at medical schools.

Students could then attend a viva voce examination by a board of prominent medical men, held quarterly at the Freemason’s Tavern. We know of at least 15 men who passed their examination in 1822, including Edmund Gabriel, the scribe of this collection of lecture notes.

Portrait of Edmund Gabriel, donated to the RCVS in 1883

The student

After graduating, Edmund Gabriel (1800-1864), seems to have remained in London, with his address listed as Fetter Lane, off Fleet Street. Later, in 1844, he became the first Secretary of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, where his distinctive sloping handwriting can be seen in the first book of Minutes of the Council.

When the RCVS first moved into 10 Red Lion Square in 1853, Gabriel resided there for a portion of his annual honorarium. In 1856, he was elected veterinary surgeon for the RSPCA. He remained Secretary until ill-health forced his resignation in 1861, and died in 1864. His obituary in The Veterinarian describes him as “active and energetic in mind, gentlemanly in his demeanour… and was respected most by those who knew him best.”

Screenshot of first page of Lecture 9 – Structure, ecomony and diseases of the bones.

The lectures

Gabriel’s notes comprise of 77 lectures, delivered from the 12th November 1821 to 19th June 1822. They almost completely relate to horses only, with the occasional mention of other species as a point of comparison. Most comparisons are made between equine and human anatomy and pathology, which is perhaps unsurprising, due to Coleman’s medical background, and the assumed medical experience of many of the students.

Extract from Frederick Smith’s list of subjects of Coleman’s Lectures

The lectures provide a fascinating snapshot of veterinary education, and general scientific knowledge, at the time. This was 10 years before Darwin sailed on HMS Beagle, and before the term ‘scientist’ was coined by William Whewell. Coleman taught that everything that happened in the body was for a purpose, even if that purpose could not yet be observed. The lectures include frequent mentions of trials and experiments carried out and the conclusions that are drawn from the results. For example, in Lecture 3, which relates to blood, Coleman speculates as to the cause of coagulation. At this stage, science is aware of red blood cells, but this was still the early days of microscopy, and it would not be possible to view platelets until higher-resolution microscopes were developed several years later. Similarly, in Lecture 4, Coleman says of glands:

“We know but little of their functions but those must be either something added or abstracted, we cannot suppose they should enter them for nothing, why do they go through them at all unless for some particular purpose”

The discovery of hormones and a wider understanding of endocrinology would arrive several decades in the future.

The transcriptions

As well as digitising all these lectures to add to the Digital Collections, we have begun the lengthy process of fully transcribing the text to make them even more accessible. Several volunteers who contributed to last year’s transcription project have gamely agreed to tackle Gabriel’s handwriting and lend their experience and veterinary expertise to help decipher more obscure anatomical terms that are a mystery to me!

Twenty of the lectures are uploaded already, and so far, five of them have transcriptions available. More will be added in the coming months – so watch this space!

-Lorna-

A Christmas Gift to the Future of the Veterinary Professions

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This Christmas, we are launching an appeal to raise funds for vital conservation work to restore one of the most fragile items in our Historical Collection – the Volume of Incoming Letters, 1868–1877.

Correspondence pasted inside the Volume of Incoming Letters

This huge bound volume is a fascinating window into the veterinary profession in the late 19th century, covering nine years in over 1400 letters. In these letters, we can hear the voices of vets as they write to the RCVS with their concerns and ideas, and as the battle for greater recognition of the value of veterinary expertise is fought in Britain. Each letter written to the RCVS is meticulously numbered, pasted into the volume, with an annotated summary of the reply written by the Secretary.

Visible damage to the edges of pages inside the Volume

Specialist repair

In 1900, George Fleming MRCVS donated his personal library of over 600 volumes, with the instruction that they were to be “accessible to every member who desires to refer to them”.

Since then, the Collections have been moved and handled by vets in three different locations. They survived the Blitz. However, this accessibility has meant that the most used items have suffered the brunt of the damage.

There is a lot that we can do to protect fragile items – but occasionally, some material needs specialist care so we can continue to make it available to the public.

The Secretary’s decision to file the letters in this way is fascinating and impressive, but very impractical for regular use. The original leather binding and the spine are now badly damaged by wear and tear. The Volume needs cleaning, and many individual letters are torn or damaged.

We have estimated that repairing the Volume will require around 50 hours of specialised conservation work. This would also include the creation of a bespoke box for safer storage and handling.

The original leather binding is starting to come away from the spine of the Volume

A vital resource

Jane Davidson, a PhD student and RVN, is studying the development of the British veterinary profession, and recently viewed the volume as part of her research.

“The letters have added an amazing layer of personal information not available in meeting minutes – protecting them for future research is essential to veterinary history.”

The letters show, she adds, that there was already a global value to being an MRCVS during the mid-Victorian era.

“[There are] numerous and regular letters from overseas. These include from India, Mauritius, and multiple from across the United States of America.”

International correspondence to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons

What you can do

You can help support this essential restoration work by making a donation to our Christmas appeal today. You can choose to make a one-off gift or give to us regularly each month. Anything you can spare will contribute to ensuring we can help preserve the past for the veterinary surgeons and nurses of tomorrow.