Veterinary expertise, public health and animal contagion : the control of bovine tuberculosis in France and UK, 1860-1960

Résumé En

This chapter aims to study how certain animal contagious diseases have been – or not – considered an issue for French and British governments from the mid-19th century onward, and the repertoire of actions available against these diseases in the two countries, depending on socio-cultural imaginaries and knowledge, as well as on the pressure of different stakes – economic, political, industrial or professional – which will be clarified. Using Pierre Lascoumes’s frame of analysis, it shows how public policies had been applied through secondary norms that made possible the implementation of alternative means of control of these diseases. The example of the fight against bovine tuberculosis (that caused an important infant mortality) allows for a finer analysis of this legislative regulation.This work is based on a cross-analysis of parliamentary sources, archives from the French and British Ministries of Health and of Agriculture, from the Veterinary Services, from the Pasteur Institute as well as on a survey of scientific and professional veterinary literature.