Negotiating Value

Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, human and veterinary surgeons faced the challenge of a medical marketplace transformed by technology. The socioeconomic value ascribed to their patients was changing, reflecting the increasing mechanization of industry and the decreasing dependence of society on nonhuman animals for labor. In human medicine, concern for the economic consequences of fractures “pathologized” any significant level of posttherapeutic disability, a productivist perspective contrary to the traditional corpus of medical values. In contrast, veterinarians adapted to the mechanization of horsepower by shifting their primary professional interest to companion animals; a type of patient generally valued for the unique emotional attachment of the owner and not their productive capacity. The economic rationalization of human fracture care and the “sentimental” transformation of veterinary orthopedic expertise indicate how these specialists utilized increasingly convergent rhetorical arguments to justify the application of innovative fracture care technologies to their human and animal patients.

Between Human and Veterinary Medicine: The History of Animals and Surgery

“…37 Except where pet dogs were concerned, surgical interventions were performed largely for economic reasons, with the goal of quickly restoring animals to function. 38 Zoo animals had to appear before fee-paying members of the public, 39 livestock were expected to grow and reproduce themselves, and horses were required for draft power, for sporting purposes and as cavalry mounts.…”

“…Practices were reoriented to 'mimic the trends and structures of the increasingly hospital-based and surgically oriented human medicine.' 68 Vets investigated and adopted methods of balanced anaesthesia, turned to X-ray technologies, erected purpose-built hospitals, trained up a new cadre of veterinary nurses, and rapidly expanded their surgical repertoire. They thereby validated the intrinsic value that owners attached to their animals while positioning themselves as defenders of animal experiments on account of the ultimate benefit to animal patients.…”

“…By the 1930s, vets had begun to discuss and test methods of internal fixation that were used in human patients, while during WWII, the US navy purchased an external fixation apparatus devised for use in pets for testing on service men. 70 From the 1950s, new methods of fracture care were pioneered by the Swiss 'AO' association of surgeons. Their scientists used experimental rabbits and dogs to generate basic knowledge about bone growth and to perform clinical research on fracture repair.…”