Heal the Beasts

This history of veterinary medicine provides an abundance of bizarre, funny, surprising, and heartwarming anecdotes. Heal the Beasts chronicles human efforts to treat animal illnesses from 14,000 BCE to today.

How and why did humans begin to treat sick and injured animals? And how did those practices, and the associated attitudes, evolve from prehistory to the present day?

To answer these questions, Dr. Schott shares stories of 22 different animal healers and veterinarians from across eras and continents, examining the always fascinating, often unexpected, and sometimes hilarious veterinary methods employed by these people and their colleagues. But at the heart of the tale lies the evolution of the human-animal bond, which has been more cyclical than linear. In many ways, we are returning to the outlook of our distant ancestors after a centuries-long detour through a more utilitarian approach.

James Herriot will be familiar to many people, but most of the other featured vets will be new. They range from Palakapya, who treated fighting elephants in India almost 3,000 years ago, to Dr. Louis Camuti, who had the first feline house call practice anywhere, tending to the cats of celebrities in mid-20th-century Manhattan. Along the way, we see every kind of person trying to heal every kind of creature, from dogs, cows, horses, and cats to canaries, gorillas, and even dragons.

Whether you have a passion for animals, the history of the medical sciences, or just quirky history, this light-hearted exploration of the empathetic relationship between man and beast will entertain and delight.