Veterinary Surgeon

Information relating to Veterinary Surgeons.

Records

Veterinary Surgeons were initially (and at least until the 1860’s and probably the 1880’s) part of the Presidency Medical Departments, which became the Indian Medical Service and which in turn was part of the Army structure. Most listings of Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons will contain a list of Veterinary Surgeons at the end.

The British Library page on the Indian Medical Service gives details of records.

Training

• The Madras Veterinary Establishment was set up in 1810 and boys from the Military Male Asylum and the Charity School were to be trained in the veterinary art, with the eventual rank of farriers.
• There is a British Library catalogue entry IOR/F/4/661/18358 Mar 1821, which appears to be in respect of Bengal: Appointment of J.T. Hodgson as Veterinary Surgeon to the Governor General's Body Guard - he is to select and train eight Assistant Apothecaries as Veterinary Surgeons for the Light Cavalry Regiments. Refer Apothecary - Duties.
• Page 3 of "History and Scope of Veterinary Medicine" (pdf) by MA Samad and MU Ahmed talks about the history of Veterinary Medicine in the Indian Sub- continent. It advises an Army Veterinary School was established at Poona in 1862, The first Veterinary College was set up at Babugarh in 1877, followed by Lahore in 1882, Bombay in 1886, and Madras and Calcutta in 1893
• Bombay Veterinary College was established 2 August 1886 according to this MAFSU(Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University) link. It also contains a paragraph about William Moorcroft in addition to historical information.
• The Madras Veterinary College TANUVAS

Individuals

William Moorcroft

William Moorcroft (Wikipedia) was the first English Veterinary Surgeon at Pusa. In describing the book Beyond Bokhara: The Life of William Moorcroft, Asian Explorer and Pioneer Veterinary Surgeon 1767-1825 by Garry Alder (1985), Bill Buxton states on his exploration website:

"This is the only biography of William Moorcroft, one of the great early explorers of the region north west of India. He was a veterinarian who came to India in 1808 as Superintendent of East India Company's horses. He traveled widely, ostensibly in search of breeding stock, but this was clearly more of a pretext than fact. He undertook a journey into western Tibet in 1812, across the Garhwal Himalaya to Lake Manasarowar, Mount Kailas region, the Rakas Tal, and Gartok. Moorcroft and Hearsey were the first Englishmen in the area.
"His next major trip was to Bokhara. He left British territory in 1820, for a trip that would last until 1825. Due to civil unrest in Afghanistan, he decided to go via Ladakh and Chinese Turkistan. He waited in Leh for permission from Kashgar, during which time he traveled and explored the greater part of Ladakh, the Karakoram Pass, the head-waters of the Yarkand River, the Western Himalaya, the Karakoram and the NW Frontier. In 1824, after deciding that permission would never come , he decided to go via Afghanistan, regardless of the civil conflict there. Traveled through Kashmir and Punjab, over the Khyber Pass, across the Oxus, and got to Bokhara. He died during the return trip."

Elsewhere on his site, Buxton gives a short, but fuller biography of Moorcroft, including a bibliography. On the India List a post and thread mention the EIC horse stud at Pusa where Moorcroft was posted. Refer Ordnance.

Historical books available online include Travels in the Himalayan provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab, in Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara from 1819 to 1825 by William Moorcroft and George Trebeck Volume 1, Volume 2 (Google Books).

External resources

• Development of Veterinary Work In India Informative short article held on website of the Indian Academy of Sciences. The article outlines the history of veterinary work in India from 1799 up to the 1930s and mentions the men who played a major role in its expansion.
• An Army Veterinary Department was established in 1884 (a very brief mention in The Tribune India Online). A Civil Veterinary Department was established from 1889 with full details in this link from the Department of Animal Husbandry , Maharashtra State. It seems that it was the Civil Veterinary Department that later became known as the Indian Veterinary Service or I.V.S. In 1923 a Commission into the Civil Services decided that there would be no further recruitment into the IVS and that in future the provincial governments would control and make appointments Pratiyogita Darpan/January 2007/1150 Google Books
• South Asia Archive & Library Group host a Powerpoint presentation given at their conference by Christopher Gill called "Veterinary Material in the National Library of Scotland’s India Papers Collection - A previously neglected resource for historical research".
• History of the Remount & Veterinary Corps Indian Army Official Website
• Army Remount Corps indiapicks.com
• The initial paragraph of this Government of Balochistan link sets out the history of veterinary establishments in that area from 1884
• "Thomas Hagger An Indian Army Veterinary Surgeon in Australia" by John Fisher commences page 5 of this Australian Veterinary History Society 1995 Newsletter pdf and mentions the trade in Australian horses to India c early 1840's.
• The Indian Veterinary Research Institute was established in 1889 as the Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory.