History and Scope of Veterinary Medicine

The history of earliest recognition, decline and renaissance of Veterinary Medicine in the world with the brief history of Veterinary Medicine in Indian sub-continent including Bangladesh have been described. It appears from the different reports that with the recommendation of the Joint Indo-American and Pak-American teams on agricultural research and education recommended to establish Agricultural Universities in India and Pakistan where veterinary and agriculture education brought under one umbrella with bifurcation of the complete degree, B.Sc. (Vet. Sci. & AH) into two, DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine) and B.Sc. (AH) as an American education pattern of Land Grant colleges. Out of 22 Veterinary colleges of India, only three Agricultural Universities ( Pantnagar, Haryana and Punjab ) and two in Pakistan (EPAU and WPAU) were implemented the American recommendations. The Indian National Commission on Agriculture has recognized these two separate degrees offered in a profession as detrimental towards livestock development and the Review Committee on Agricultural Universities who recommended an integration of the two degrees to avoid duplication. Accordingly, these two degrees in all the three Indian universities have been combined as BVSc & AH in 1982, and as DVM in 2002 in Pakistan, whereas the Veterinary education has made more complex in Bangladesh through establishment of four Government Veterinary Colleges where offering five years DVM degree including one year internship with combined curricula on animal health and production against four years separate two degrees offering from BAU without internship. Veterinary education should include animal health, animal production and animal product technology for effective teaching, research and extension programme and accordingly, the curricula and syllabi of all the Veterinary degrees offering all over the world have been adjusted except BAU which is urgently required to adjust and reformulate the uniform curricula and syllabi in all the degree offering educational institutes in Bangladesh. Moreover, the history of modern veterinary education in India showed great achievement through establishment of Veterinary University, ‘Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University' on September 1989. Therefore, there is a strong urge to establish Veterinary University in Bangladesh following the pattern of India. DOI:10.3329/bjvm.v1i1.1909 Bangl. J. Vet. Med. (2008). 1(1): 01-08