Serum therapy against FMD and the development of the French veterinary profession in the 1930s

This article focuses on the development of the French veterinary profession in the twentieth century and on the importance of sera and vaccines production and use in that process. As an example, it will follow the trajectory of sera against foot-and-mouth disease—a disease disastrous for agricultural production—from the very first researches on viruses and immunization to the production of “immunizing agents” by veterinarians from the veterinary services or by private laboratories that the sanitary norm of controlling animal diseases in France let free to develop and sell during the 1930s. Based on various sources—national archives, archives from private pharmaceutical industries, professional veterinary journals and interviews of retired veterinarians—this paper reveals a completely different image of France often depicted as a state-controlling country through a body of civil servants. On the contrary, it shows how local and private initiatives prevailed in the control of contagious diseases of animals, leaving veterinarians free to establish special relations with farmers and pharmaceutical industries, which were essential to the development of their profession. The paper argues finally that the use of syringes containing sera—and later vaccines—reinforced the medical role of veterinarians who saw both financial benefits in the direct sale of these products and also the core meaning of their work as practitioners of animal medicine. This article is a socio-historical study which relies on various sources: national archives from the Ministry of Agriculture and its veterinary services; archives from the expert body of contagious animal diseases, the Comité Consultatif des Epizooties (Advisory Committee on Epizootics) whose task was to advise the Ministry of Agriculture on the policy to follow; archives from private pharmaceutical industries such as the Mérieux Institute; personal archives of Ludovic and Pierre Blaisot, a physician and a veterinarian involved in the production and use of sera in Normandy. This article also relies on the careful study of professional veterinary journals and especially the journal of the French veterinary union (le Bulletin du Syndicat National des Vétérinaires Français) and also on some interviews of retired veterinarians.