The First Dog Doctors: Canine Healthcare Practitioners in the Eighteenth-Century Medical Marketplace

Abstract

The question of when dogs became the recipients of veterinary care has long been debated; current scholarship does not acknowledge the long tradition of canine healthcare provided by irregular specialists prior to the late nineteenth century. This article reveals, however, that eighteenth-century Britain was home to a thriving canine medical marketplace. Among its key actors were 'dog doctors'-individuals without formal healthcare training who regularly treated and healed dogs. This article offers the frst historical account of the eighteenth-century dog doctor, contextualising and reappraising his identity, clients and services. It focusses on the dynamic career of the celebrity practitioner John Norborn, who proudly self-identifed as a 'dog doctor' when the term was considered an insult. In doing so the article considers the conditions in which specialist care for dogs frst developed and argues for a new chronology of canine veterinary medicine.