When Andrew Smith arrived in Canada in the early 1860s to found the veterinary school that would become the OVC, a suitable text for teaching veterinary medicine in Canada did not exist. Numerous veterinary books did exist in the world but as veterinary medicine was a new field in a young nation, a more direct and practical approach was thought more appropriate. Smith, along with fellow faculty member Duncan McEachran, would publish The Canadian Horse and His Diseases in 1867.
The book shown here, Veterinary Notes, was first published in 1883 and was compiled from Smith’s various lectures. The book would be a regular fixture in the veterinary curriculum of the OVC for many years. This copy of Veterinary Notes is the oldest copy of the book contained in the C.A.V. Barker Museum’s vast collection of antiquarian veterinary books. This particular copy was published in 1889 and was owned by J. Orville Reed, an 1896 graduate of the OVC who was from Danville, Pennsylvania.
— Lisa Cox
(Lisa Cox is a historian and post-doctoral researcher exploring the history of OVC and the veterinary profession in Canada)