Comparative neuropathology (1962): Attending to neuropathologies across multiple species

Abstract

This paper takes as its subject Comparative Neuropathology (1962), arguing that the volume illustrates the interlocking cultures of veterinary medicine, human medicine, and laboratory-based biological sciences after the Second World War. The project amassed cases of domestic, experimental, and wild animals, identified species-specific conditions, and evaluated the vulnerabilities of the nervous system to disease and trauma. The collection of ill ruminants, poisoned cats, and injured dogs built on earlier traditions of comparative medicine, but also reflected the turn to biological principles to explain medical conditions, increased industry and military funding for the biomedical sciences, and changes in veterinary practice. Using Comparative Neuropathology as a lens, this paper probes the actors, affiliations, and frameworks that wrestled with new species of neurological patients, newly exposed vulnerabilities of the nervous system, and the emergence of new neurological sciences, casting new light on the heterogenous landscape of the emergent neurosciences and mid-twentieth-century efforts to entwine human and veterinary medicine.