Main description:

This is the first full-length monograph to examine the history of colonial medicine in India from the perspective of veterinary health. The history of human health in the subcontinent has received a fair amount of attention in the last few decades, but nearly all existing texts have completely ignored the question of animal health. This book will not only fill this gap, but also provide fresh perspectives and insights that might challenge existing arguments.

At the same time, this volume is a social history of cattle in India. Keeping the question of livestock at the centre, it explores a range of themes such as famines, agrarian relations, urbanisation, middle-class attitudes, caste formations etc. The overall aim is to integrate medical history with social history in a way that has not often been attempted. -- .

Contents:

Introduction
Part I
Veterinary Health and the Colonial State
1. Horse Breeding and the Ideologies of the Early Colonial State
2. Beasts, Murrains and Veterinary Health
3. Ticks, Germs and Bacteriological Research
Part II
Caste, Class and Cattle
4. Cattle, Famines and the Colonial State
5. Food Adulteration, Public Health and Middle Class Anxieties
6. Cattle-Poisoning and the Chamar Identity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index -- .