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Doctors and Skinner - Veterinary Medicine in the Museum
Firstly, it researches the "history, theory and ethics of veterinary medicine" as well as the "history of domestic animals", promotes this work at the national level and improves further education in content and methods. Secondly, the section professionalises the history of veterinary medicine through interdisciplinary cooperation in order to anchor the subject as well as the history of human medicine - in science and as an institution.
contents
- Combination of historical research and teaching
- Veterinary medicine - an old story
- The teacher's apprenticeship
- Ross doctors and stable master
- Animal diseases and dirt medicine
- Cutter and executioner
- Veterinarians in the war
- Historical research on veterinary medicine in Hannover
- Research without funding
Combination of historical research and teaching
This museum was the first of its kind in the world and the starting point for today around 40 such specialist museums. Today, the old pharmacy house of the university houses the exhibition, is linked directly to the TIHO through Schäffer's professorship and also offers information for non-specialist visitors. Such a combination of historical research, teaching and service can not be found in veterinary medicine anywhere else in Europe.
In the history of veterinary medicine, horse medicine initially played a significant role. (Image: Sven Cramer / fotolia.com) Doctoral students present the results of their research at the conferences of the DVG History Section, and the conference reports have become indispensable for the historiography of veterinary medicine.
The museum displays more than 650 exhibits, in the magazines store around 6500 objects: instruments, instruments, documents, writings and images from all areas of veterinary science. In 1995, a department for military history was added.
The concept is based on the principles of scientific museums: collecting, preserving, exhibiting, exploring and teaching; it is public, but not public. Veterinary students gain insights into museum work; Visitors and school classes benefit from guided tours - both in general and on specific topics.1
Veterinary medicine - an old story
The history of veterinary medicine sheds light not only on historical methods of healing, but also on how humans, animals and the world were thought. Since humans domesticated animals, they probably looked after their illnesses and treated wounds. The ancient Egyptians, for example, depict the birth and reproduction of animals.
Bulldogs provide the first evidence of veterinary medicine: they show that cattle were castrated. An Egyptian papyrus of Kahun from 1850 BC Chr refers to the fact that the Egyptians practiced veterinary medicine, knew diagnoses, symptoms and therapies, and treated several animal species: cattle, geese and even fish.
Hippocrates (460-377 BC) founded the empirical medicine and thus gave the "thinking tools" to heal animals.
Aristotle (384-322 BC) designed a hierarchy: At the top stood the gods, then the humans, among them the animals, among them the plants and finally the inorganic matter.
This valuation determined the thinking of the West - until today; Schäffer explains this in the position of the veterinarian: "Human physicians can achieve the rank of military general, veterinarians to date only the rank of colonel. The man treating physicians stood in the scale of Aristotle between man and God, the veterinarian between man and animal. " 2
Aristotle described rabies, Fußgicht as anthrax and gave instructions for castrating. In his historia animalum he also explicitly devoted himself to animal diseases.
The Roman poet P. Vergil (70-19 BC) also wrote about veterinary medicine in his georgica. He outlined sheep manure, mouth disease, anthrax, cattle disease and pigs. For the last two, it is not clear what the diseases are.3
The teacher's apprenticeship
Animal and human medicine were based on humoral therapy, the science of bodily fluids. Hippocrates had established it. Thus, there were four juices, namely blood (sanguis), phlegm, yellow bile (chole), and black bile (melanchole) associated with the four elements of fire, earth, air, and water, and corresponding to four states: hot, cold , moist and dry. Being healthy means that these juices are in balance (eucrasy) - in humans and animals. To this day, we use these terms to describe types of people: choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine.
Bloodletting (phlebotomy) was used to establish balance, and blood was taken near the diseased body site. The burning (cauterization) also came from the teaching theory: From the "hot" wound, the sickening juices should leak. In case of fever, the "fire" had to be cooled - using damp wipes or ice.4
Ross doctors and stable master
The Arabs had conquered their empire on horseback and specialized in equine medicine: The migration of peoples brought into Western Rome the ancient (animal) medicine in oblivion; In Byzantium, however, this knowledge was preserved, and later the Muslims translated the sources of the Romans and Greeks into Arabic. The Greek hippiatros (horse doctor) was replaced by the Arab baitar. The Arabs wrote books about diseases of horses, cattle, camels and sheep.
In Christian Europe, meanwhile, the superstition mingled with the fact that demons cause animal diseases with meaningful medicine. Hildegard von Bingen (1098 - 1179) described animal diseases, for which she blamed the mythical beast Basilisk, which hatched from a snake egg that hatched a cock. Potions of Wisenthorn and lynx blood were said to cure cattle epidemics. For sick pigs she recommended snail shells, dill and cooked stinging nettle.
Scientific Veterinary Medicine in the Middle Ages of Europe began with the German Emperor Friedrich II von Hohenstaufen (1194-1250). He had doubted the immortality of the soul and equated the power of the emperor with that of the pope; Pope Gregory had therefore sent him in 1227 to repent on a crusade to Jerusalem. But instead of fighting the Muslims, the critical emperor became friends with them, studied the ancient philosophy preserved by the Arabs, learned the empirical method, reconciled with the Sultan Al Khamil and returned to Europe with a menagerie.
This early Enlightenment authored books on the healing of horses, hawks and hounds, and is considered a trailblazer in veterinary medicine, drawing conclusions from observations and rejecting magic explanations. Friedrich introduced the falcon hood in the Occident and wrote the standard work "De arte venandi cum avibus". ("To bite on the art"). His writings on ornithology amaze with realistic illustrations of the animals, which are not inferior to today's destination books.
Jordanus Ruffus, one of his stable masters, wrote a book on horse medicine; Bloodletting and cauterization show him as a champion of the apprenticeship. Master Albrant also worked for Friedrich II as a horse doctor and wrote another manual on their medicine. Like his emperor, he renounced the spells of the time. His "Rossarzneibüchlein" remained in circulation until the 18th century and became the most important handbook on horse medicine.5 Ruffus and Albrant founded the professional veterinary medicine of the stable masters of the courtly studs.
The health of the horses was a decisive factor of power: horse-searching and thus the collapse of the cavalry decided wars. The horse doctors were high-ranking employees of the farm; This privilege shaped the conservative mentality of these specialists until the 20th century.
The high time of the cavalry was indeed over with the First World War; but just then the realization prevailed to give dentistry in horses top priority, since horses did not fight with toothache. Horse medicine had little to do with private affection even a few decades ago; It was not until around 1950 that the tractor prevailed among the farmers - until then the horse was an existential workhorse.
Animal diseases and dirt medicine
Animal diseases such as worm infestation, snot and anthrax were also known in the Middle Ages; However, the treatment often seems absurd, which was partly due to ignorance of viruses and bacteria. So they suspected the rabies, a tongue muscle of the dog, as a trigger of rabies and cut him out. Pork prayers written on slices of bread should protect against snot and fever.
The misinterpretation of the symptoms of rabies led to the idea that the patients turned into dogs or wolves, thus presumably fertilizing the werewolves.6 St. Hubert, the patron saint of the hunt was supposed to heal the "Hundswuth". "Hubertusschlüssel", placed on humans and dogs, should help against the illness. A common "therapy" was to kill the infected dogs and humans. Sometimes the sick people were tied to the bed and suffocated with blankets, or their veins were cut.7
The so-called "dirty medicine" for animals and humans was the pharmacy of the little people. Faeces of animals and humans, blood, hair, earwax and rotten fruit formed the basis. There were also medicinal plants that we still use today: valerian, chamomile or sage. Against diseases of the pigs should help cooked horse meat, the ashes of burnt frogs and vervain.
The farmers knew that sick animals infect the healthy and isolated them. Nevertheless, they were powerless against livestock epidemics: From the 16th to the 18th century, epidemics repeatedly struck almost all of Europe's farm animals: rinderpest, anthrax, sheeppox, snot, foot-and-mouth disease as well as rabies. The clergy and peasants firmly believed that epidemics were God's punishments and regarded rational therapies with suspicion - which soon became a witch trial in early modern times.
Petrus de Crescentiis (1230-1321) suggested that sick pigs give them crushed laurels, bran and sourdough. Leading the way but was his reference to the cleanliness: The stables would have to be cleaned daily, and the pigs in salt water to be bathed. Epidemics spread in the Middle Ages, mainly because of the horrible hygiene.8th
Cutter and executioner
Veterinary medicine diversified widely like human medicine. Studied treated animals of rulers such as hunting falcons, hunting dogs and riding horses. Practitioners such as executioners, butchers, skinners and shepherds, however, took care of the livestock of the people.
Castration served to fatten the animals. The meat of oxen and capons was considered tender; the meat of uncastrated boars is inedible. Geldings and oxen are tamer than uncastrated stallions and bulls. The depredation was brutal, but simple. The grooms and shepherds severed the spermatic cord with knives or scissors, crushing the testicles with stones or tongs. There were also castration tongs and clamps. But Sauschneider also castrated sows to prevent fertilization by Wildeber - so they got on with surgery.
Veterinary medicine was subject to occupations that we hardly associate with today: butchers, executioners, skinners, blacksmiths, shepherds, foresters and hunters. Foresters and hunters treated injuries to the hunting dogs. Butcher was responsible for meat inspection and live diagnosis. Skinner (Wasenmeister) and animal healer was often the same profession. The Munich steward Bartholomäus Deibler, for example, enjoyed such a reputation that he also cured the steeds of the urban upper class; the executioner Hans Stadler treated horses like humans with his herbal tea.
Nobody knew animal diseases better than the guzzlers who eliminated the carcasses of animals that had died of these diseases. These carcasses also did business with the carrion. Until meat inspection by official veterinarians, the meatiness of meat was a matter of the purse. As late as 1789, the skinner Adam Kuisl reported the meat from "kranck livestock" was delivered to the inns.9
The shepherds faced the stable masters in the social scale of animal welfare. Like the guzzlers and executioners, those who handled cadavers were suspicious of black magic. Shepherds led the cattle out in nature, where the wolves and robbers of the real world, and the night ghosts of fantasy had their home They not only lived outside the control of the authorities, but met death, recycled and buried dead animals. Shepherds preserved the knowledge of the healing powers of nature at a time when the Church banished empirical research into the realm of the devil.
The shepherds sold the wolfbane in addition to rational means, so put a protective spell on the herds, so that the wolves stayed away. With the witchcraft magic came into the realm of the devil: The wolf banner became the werewolf, the helping shepherd to the witcher, who ate in child form children. The counter-medicine of the outsiders, by their success, called into question the omnipotence of the Church, and shepherds who had been tortured to have raged in a wolf form died at the stake.
A "document" such as the witch's ointment was easy to find, because the animal healers had plenty of ointments. The shepherd Henn Knie from the Westerwald confessed that the devil had rubbed him with a sharp ointment, thrown him a white fur, and that he had been "so designed with his senses and thoughts (...) as if he had to tear everything down." The wolf he thought he would drive away by making a loaf of bread with the formula "To the wretched woodhound, I conclude to his mouth that he does not break my flock, or attack him."
For example, in 1600 Rolzer Bestgen was executed as a werewolf: In addition to the Wolfsbane, the shepherd also used magic to heal tumors in horses and pigs. However, the old man actually threatened: He made his living by reading the gospel to pigs. If he did not get any money, he cursed the wolves for foals.10
The evil call of those who worked with dead animals lasted for centuries. King George III wrote in 1778 the founding document of the TIHO as "Ross Arßney School". He wrote: "When at such a school (...) to achieve the benefit, it is inevitably necessary to dissect bodies of fallen animals, (...) and teachers (...) of the horse - and livestock - Arsney - school once blamed for this ; So, while we hope that kind and well-mannered people (...) arise and contain themselves. "11
Veterinarians in the war
The military history exhibition is devoted to the veterinary surgeons in the army. There they played a significant role in supplying the troops. The First World War had indeed shown that the time of the cavalry as a weapon of war was over. But as riding, load and draft animals served horses in masses of the German Wehrmacht in 1939. Horses pulled machine guns and lighter guns, carried cable reels and radio equipment. On the eastern front, the horse-drawn carriages were often the only means of transport after the engines failed - the Wehrmacht used a total of 2800 000 horses. By 1941 over 1,500,000 of them had died.
Veterinarians cared for injured and sick horses. They took them from the troop to a rendezvous a few miles behind the front, with horse transporters to the veterinary company, and in severe cases into the horse hospital.
War veterans of the Wehrmacht fought epidemics, provided for the gas protection of the army animals, cared for and cared for sick as injured animals of the Wehrmacht as well as they supplied the animals of the civilians in the area of the troop; they grazed the hooves; they controlled the feed; they looked at the slaughter cattle and meat of the soldiers; they eliminated and recycled carcasses in the operation area, and they put the animals under the troops.
Historical research on veterinary medicine in Hannover
The history of veterinary medicine belonged to Hanover in 1881 as a subject matter. Today a lecture in the "History of Veterinary Medicine" and a "Veterinary Medicine History Seminar" introduces the methods of Spiritual Science.
The topics are varied: from veterinary medicine of the ancient Near East, through the human-animal relationship in ancient Egypt to contemporary history: veterinary medicine under National Socialism or the GDR. The history of domestic animals and livestock is its own block. Schäffer's work alone ranges from "equine and ranger hands" to "The role and veterinary treatment of dogs in the First World War" to "With snake and skull - veterinarians in the SS".
Researchers can draw on a wealth of resources in the museum magazine, the university archive and the military history collection. These include docking templates, which were placed in the dog's ears and representations of the mouses in horses: even horses were cropped the ears - because of the false idea that would reduce air resistance.
The embryo for cattle was pushed to the cervix of the cow to pull the calf out of the birth canal. Castration tongs and castration clamps are also on display, as are cattle tensioners and cattle pincers. Instruments make it clear that veterinary medicine was often hard work: a pair of forceps to pull horses' teeth weighs several kilograms, for example, and the veterinarian had to hold them freely in their hands as the horse stood during the operation.
Historical illustrations show the old methods: Fontanelles, small pieces of leather with holes were the counterpart to cupping heads in humans. The doctor brought small wounds to the animal and allowed them to fester; In the doctrine of the four juices, the bad juices flowed out of the wound. This method, called superstition, actually works: It stimulates the immune system. The Huf- and Kurschmiede in the stable master time of 1250-1800 burned horses wounds, let them to the vein and infused them with potions.
Original manuals such as "The well-experienced horse-doctor, made famous by his happy cures at various farms" of 1712 are exhibited in display cases. Schäffer's pictures of the "mistake horse" of 1820 were, according to Schäffer, the "Power Point Presentations of Her Time". The picture of the "error horse" shows on a horse all diseases known at that time.
A trailing practice from the early 20th century shows the veterinarian as an all-rounder, as he still haunts the imagination today, but belongs to the past. This classic land veterinarian also helped the cow calving as he pulled splinters out of the ball of his foot. He made his own medication.
Today, practical veterinary medicine specializes more and more. There are not only large and small animal practices, but reptile experts, veterinarians for ornamental and those for commercial fish. This is partly due to technical progress, but also to changing habits of habitation such as the abundance of exotic birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish: a small veterinarian 30 years ago might even get a Greek tortoise, with infections of a poison dart frog, he would be overwhelmed. A booming exotic animal market today requires professionals who know their diseases - veterinarians are becoming "tropical doctors". New cuddly toys bring competence problems: A mini pig as a cuddly toy legally remains a pig, even if it sleeps in the marriage bed, and a small veterinarian must not treat it.12
Animal ethics have changed as well: pets are not only getting older, but according to the animal protection law it is also forbidden to kill a vertebrate without a reasonable reason - and age is not a reasonable reason. Grace courts are no longer subject to grace-rather than arbitrariness-but are a right, and the number of hospices for animals has risen from ten to 130 within a few years.
The ethical problem with borderline cases has always been for veterinarians: releasing an animal from suffering is a veterinarian's duty, and even here technical progress is pushing the frontiers: for example, are wheelchairs appropriate for paraplegic dogs or preventable suffering?
The museum and the archive also provide services: Historical instruments of veterinary medicine are scientifically examined, questions answered by authorities and experts. Since 1992, the Department of History organizes scientific conferences and publishes the conference reports, including "Veterinary History in Socialism", "Veterinary Medicine in the Third Reich" and "Veterinary Medicine in the Postwar Period" and most recently "Veterinary Medicine and Museology".
Students of veterinary medicine get to know the museum in four blocks - in block 1 in general. These include methods such as fontanelles, phlebotomy and cauterization. In block 2, how do you determine how to document new objects and place them in the magazine? Block 3 is used to search for the origin of the objects in the History Library and the University Archives. In Block 4 the students present individual objects, explaining and discussing them in a historical context.13
Research without funding
The Veterinary Museum, the University Archives, the Department of History of Veterinary Medicine and thus Prof. Dr. med. Dr. Johann Schäffer, enjoy a first-class international reputation - and rightly so. Applied veterinary medicine has no ground under its feet, if the historical bases are not known; These determine how humans and animals are thought, and this thinking determines what methods veterinarians use. The importance of the discipline also goes far beyond veterinary medicine, because sources of the past can provide answers to questions of the present: for example, no debate in nature conservation is conducted as violently as the return of the wolf. Records from the archive could reveal how great the danger was that wolves would transmit rabies, or whether wolves would ever attack humans.
Human-animal studies are gaining importance in the humanities and social sciences; this is accompanied by a critique of the construction animal in the West. The history of veterinary medicine, as applied medicine as well as animal ethics would be at the intersection of this pioneering research: commercial, domestic and zoo animal husbandry, animal welfare, cure and kill, the exploration of the boundary between animal and human meet in veterinary medicine.
The institutional basis is in contrast to the outstanding achievements of Johann Schäffer and his colleagues, to the relevance of the department and the immense potential offered by the archive, museum and library: the library with 5000 books, the university archive with 600 running meters is so far only Roughly recorded EDP. Additional staff is essential to deepen scientific and archival work. For future doctoral work stored here certainly not salvaged treasures. Johann Schäffers tasks, which he fulfills in addition to his professorship, would have to be distributed to several full-time positions. At least an archivist, a museum educator, and an employee for the press and the public are missing. This museum guides would be on a fee basis. Meanwhile, the museum lives exclusively on donations.
At present, the museum and archive complex consists of 1.5 posts, Johann Schäffer and half a secretary. The museum will be open from Tuesday to Thursday from 10.00-16.00 - due to lack of staff, this is currently only by appointment. Thus, the infrastructure is lacking to drive the necessary research, teaching and public education - for example the interdisciplinary cooperation with historians for studies in archives. Also, special events on current occasions, as they are standard in subsidized museums, can not be carried out this way - from actions for children on the history of pet ownership of hobby to ethical issues of the human-animal relationship.
"If you do not know the past, gamble the future," says a Jewish proverb. The inauguration "honors" museums, archives and historical research in the form of municipalities or companies: lectures are required for anniversaries, after which the museum is left to itself. The museum work at the TIHO thus divides the lot of many university museums and important, but not economically profitable branches of historiography. "The institutional basis will unfortunately remain a desideratum forever," concludes Schäffer.14(Dr. Utz Anhalt)
First published in Museum aktuell July / August 2015
Literature:Utz Anhalt: The werewolf. Selected aspects of a figure in the history of myths with special regard to rabies. MA thesis History. E-text in the historicum net under witchcraft.
Alfred Martin: History of rabies control in Germany. A contribution to folk medicine. From the Hessian Leaves for Folklore. Volume XIII. Pouring 1914.
Jutta Novosadtko. The everyday life of two "dishonest" occupations in the early modern period. Paderborn 1994.
Joseph Claudius Rougemont: Treatise of the Hundswuth. Translated from French by Professor Wegeler. Frankfurt am Main 1798.
Anja Schullz: The history of animal diseases with special consideration of piglet flu. Inaugural dissertation on the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the Free University of Berlin presented by Anja Schulz vet from Neustadt / Holst. Berlin 2010
Rita Voltmer and Günter Gehl (eds.): Everyday life and magic in witch trials. Weimar 2003.
footnotes:
1http: //www.vethis.de/index.php/fachgebiet-geschichte.html 2Mündl. Informatiion Johann Schäffer. 09/06/2015. 3Anja Schulz: p. 15 4Ebd. P. 15. 5 Off: Ruth M. Hirschberg. 6Joseph Claudius Rougemont: p. 168. 7 Alfred Martin: p. 52 8 Anja Schulz: p.24-26; S.60-64. 9 Cf. on the story of the executioners and skinners: Jutta Novosadtko. The everyday life of two "dishonest" occupations in the early modern period. Paderborn 1994. 10 Cf. to shepherds in the witch trial: http://www.elmar-lorey.de/prozesse.htm and Elmar Lorey: From wolf opponent to werewolf. Witch trials in Nassauer Land. In: Rita Voltmer: pp. 65-73. 11 Founding document of the TIHO. Copy of the original. P. 1. 12Mündl. Information Johann Schäffer, 14.6.2014. 13http://www.vethis.de/index.php/fachgebiet-geschichte.html 14Univ.- Prof. Dr. med. Dr. habil. Johann Schäffer. Flyer of the German Veterinary Society e.V.