the veterinary medicine in San Juan

THE VETERINARY MEDICINE IN SAN JUAN IN 1871

With the present we give beginning to a series of articles destined to transcribe unknown or unpublished historical documents, that are to serve like sources the historiográfica investigation.

We thus fulfilled the principle enunciated by the outstanding French historian H. Marrou, who maintained that History ?takes control of documents?; all the others are mere repetition that, although fulfills the important mission to spread the knowledge, nothing has to do with the historiográfica work. The History of the Veterinary medicine requires of a interdisciplinary task in which diverse specialists participate actively; it is therefore that from today we will make available of the all of them documentary sources, hoping that from the debate of ideas a suitable interpretation of texts arises.

First that occupies to us it has to do with the National Exhibition of Cordova inaugurated in October of 1871 in the city homónima. 2,671 exhibitors of all the country with 11,704 objects met for the occasion. In so pleasing commemoration of fasto a ?Government reporter of the National Exhibition of Cordova in 1871? was published, whose volume 5ª - published in 1872 in Buenos Aires by Imprenta de Tipos to Steam it dedicated itself to the province of San Juan. It was written by Rafael S. Igarzabal and in their pages 223 to 225 the diseases of the animals of the province are described. The following one is the plaintext of the brief article:

?Not for many years until which the province was free of diseases in the animals, mainly of the epizoóticas that are so destructive. Most serious of these evils one has appeared in 1870 for the first time; it is bad the aftosa fever or of legs that after whipping to the cattle in the Argentine Coast appeared here in November in the potreros of alfalfa, becoming ill until of a 80 daily animals in each wintertime of 400 to 500 oxen. In almost all the rural departments it has given simultaneously, but happily of a so benign way that by means of one it activates attention and effective priest have been saved thousands of bovine patients without no perishes, having to notice that it is already a recognized fact that after the this badly cattles they are in disposition to fatten with much facility and prontitud. The disease in the cattle that is a true calamity for the Country, in some occasions, is the one of the grain that it gives generally in the summer and it seems that it has by main causes the evaporation of the ground. This badly he is mortal and it snatches the life almost always to 8, 10 or 11 daily animals in each wintertime of 400 to 500 oxen. There has been wintertime that is lost sometimes up to 200 in few days, but this is an exception because the disaster is diminished generally changing the cattle from a potrero to another one or better to a district or different department. This disease is very contagious.

The spot is another much less contagious disease that previous, but the equally deadly one. It gives to few animals the year, but almost he is incurable. The empanzadura and the worm in the head are other evils more than it undergoes the cattle, but neither they are contagious nor they appear frequently, but once another one to the year, outside which always they are curable when it is taken care of in time.

All whatever we have said on the diseases that the cattle suffers, is applicable to the wool one that it experiences them in the same way, although with some benignancy and less losses.

The equine cattle in 1870 also underwent partly the aftosa fever, but with less force than the bovine one. The diseases that that experiences more, are: the scabies that him pela and hurts the snout and the legs, curable and almost always noncontagious, badly of leg with which the animal falls and dies if it does not burn with a iron the affected parts to him; the diabetes, disease that is cured shaking the horse, by means of galopes given opportunely with other remedies; and finally torozon that has by cause the excessive food without the power of dirijir [to him sic].

All whichever disease experiences the horse less attacks the mules, and something to the donkeys, but it must be had presents/displays that the disasters of any badly, if they are something remarkable in the cattle, in the equine one with almost insignificant like also that in the this diseases are not contagious.

The birds undergo the nugget in the spring and the smallpox and moquillo in the summer, but not in a proportion that calls much the attention.

The goats never experiment no badly. He is doubtless that the climate of the stays or mountainous part of the Province contributes to it; but it must be had presents/displays perhaps that for want of diseases there is in the pasturing fields another one whips worse as is the drought that when it gets to take place is very fatal to the farmers.

It must notice that the diseases in the cattles, wool, equine and mular, as well as in the birds they take place in summer generally, with the exception of the spot and the worm that they give in all time.

These data do not have to alarm in way some that does not know the province; the diseases are so benign, and give so short number of animals, that is rarest seeing every three or four years losses in the businesses because of these diseases. He is most natural to hear than bovine ones of the spot, or eight or ten of the grain in a number considerable of animals have died two or three that cannot harm this loss. In general, establishing comparisons, must be recognized that for all class of cattles there is point of no comparison between the climate of the Argentine coast, and the one of the province of San Juan, in where really there are excessive droughts in the Fertile Valley and no Lagoons that are the points where are more stays, nor either in the alfalfa pasturings the disastrous diseases that are experienced in other provinces in some years ".

Published in Bulletin of the Association Argentina de Historia of the Veterinary medicine, year I, number 2, July of 1998, ps. 2-3.

Author:

Osvaldo Antonio Perez Veterinary doctor, UBA Lawyer in History, USAL Professor of History, USAL to oaperez@sinectis.com.ar Association Argentina de Historia of the Veterinary medicine http://webs.sinectis.com.ar/oaperez http://www.asarhive.com.ar

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