Of Horses and Rabbits: A First Attempt to Create a Veterinary School in Barcelona (1888-1890)

Abstract

The first veterinary schools in Europe were established in the eighteenth century. In Spain, this process began in 1793 with the opening of the Madrid veterinary school, followed by other similar institutions founded in the 19th century. The creation of the first Veterinary Faculty in Catalonia took place in 1982. Until then, the creation of a center that would offer these kind of studies had become a recurring topic of interest in Barcelona. This article analyzes, from a local perspective, the project that was conceived in 1888 to transfer the school from Santiago de Compostela to the Catalan capital. The proposal received strong support from civil society and public institutions in the city. It was characterized by the emphasis it placed on an education that did not focus solely on large animals. For the first time in Spain, the demands of intensive animal production, such as poultry or rabbit farming that were beginning to proliferate in Catalonia, were seen as an essential part of veterinary training. This represented a major programmatic modification for a school that, due to the new features it introduced, was labelled “model” in the documentation examined.