Technology and Culture

Between 1945 and 1970, the introduction of antibiotics in agriculture forced veterinarians to articulate the boundaries of their professional identity. While veterinarians welcomed the new aid to arrest infectious diseases of livestock, they worried as farmers took animal healing into their own hands without veterinary supervision, and resented the competition from retail outlets that sold the drugs. Veterinary antibiotics also set off heated debates within the field about whether the profession should position itself as preventers or healers of disease, debates that were akin to the kinds of professional discourses among physicians and pharmacists in the same period. By calling attention to the social context that helped facilitate an increasing reliance on the veterinary antibiotics, this article helps explain the sources of present-day overuse of such antibiotics in American agriculture.