Dog history

Dogs are not only subjects of veterinary care, they are also subjects of cultural history. An interesting example may be found in an essay about the history of bloodhounds around 1900 by Neil Pemberton.

I copy the summary, and, as an appetizer, the introduction of the article. Pemberton makes extensive use of newspaper articles.

The bloodhound's nose knows? dogs and detection in Anglo-American culture

Neil Pemberton,  Endeavour 37, 196–208

Summary

The figure of the English bloodhound is often portrayed both positively and negatively as an efficient man-hunter. This article traces the cultural, social and forensic functions of the first attempts to use bloodhounds for police investigation, and argues that the analysis of these developments, which took place at the turn of the twentieth century, further our understanding of the diverse practices and cultures of fin de siècle forensics. Arguing that their dogs could trail tracks of human scent, English pedigree bloodhound breeders promoted and imagined novel ways of detecting and thinking forensically, with which they made claims to social authority in matters of crime and detection. Yet, English bloodhounds were unstable carriers of forensic meaning making their use for tracking criminals deeply problematic: for example, the name of the breed itself invoked a long-line of social and cultural associations. In showing this, we can see how the practices of canine forensics had their roots in a complex history, involving genteel leisure, changing cultural understandings of scent, and shifting dog-keeping mores.

Introduction: a murder mystery at Gorse Hall

From the late 1880s onwards stories of the pursuit of criminals with bloodhounds, whether successful or unsuccessful, made dramatic copy for a penny press on both sides of the Atlantic, eager to fill their pages with narratives that thrilled, shocked and horrified readers. One such article was published in the popular illustrated London weekly the Daily Sketch on the 3 November 1909, in which the bloodhound was characterised as possessing an insatiable curiosity – a dog that pursues even the faintest of scent traces with all the zest of a born detective. The day before, a Lancashire mill owner, George Starres, was found dead at his mansion, Gorse Hall near Stalybridge; he had been shot. Unable to find any actionable crime scene evidence or witnesses to the murder, the police investigators called upon the services of the renowned private dog breeder and trainer, Colonel E.H. Richardson.

In the Daily Sketch's coverage of the investigation, Richardson's sleuthing was much applauded: he was praised as a knowledgeable and trustworthy hunter, who practised the art of detection in a fundamentally different way from other police detectives, whose essential approach to crime solving relied on relating physical evidence to oral testimony. Richardson instead solved criminal mysteries through the recovery of invisible traces of a criminal's scent, employing the reputedly sensitive nose of an English bloodhound. Tracing scent by working with a hound enabled him to reconstruct the genus and movements of human quarry through space. After a long drive in the rain from his London residence, Richardson had arrived at Gorse Hall with two of his bloodhounds, who on arrival had been presented with the murder weapon found at the scene of the crime, in the hope that the dogs would detect the culprit's scent and locate a trail.

In this case however Richardson and his bloodhounds failed to find the culprit for the murder at Gorse Hall. Although the dogs picked up a scent trail at the crime scene, they lost the trail on the surrounding moors, due in large part to the rain, which apparently dispersed what had been a traceable trail. As in the Sherlock Holmes story, in which he demonstrates the forensic productivity of being attuned to canine abilities and behaviour, sometimes the most significant thing is that the dog did not bark. Thus, taking my lead from Holmes's acute attentiveness to canine behaviour, this historical account of using dogs to solve crime avoids documenting either the historical successes or the failures or shortcomings in a specific period, thereby resisting a straightforward listing of criminal cases in which canines ‘barked,’ or not.

In search of the cause of mastitis

Although Nocard and Mollereau had demonstrated in 1884 that cocci could be held responsible for mastitis, the nature of the real cause of the disease troubled many for a long time after.

Here is a report, published in 1892 in the Receuil de Médécine Vétérinaire (vol 69 p.494-495)

by a veterinarian, J.Joquan, from Vitré, who thought that he had made a step forward in the knowledge of the cause of mastitis. This text has been published recently in Dutch in Argos, 49, 2013, 324.

“Sur une cause probable de la mammite infectieuse de la vache.”

“About a year ago I was consulted for a case of mastitis of a cow in the municipality of Vitré. Following a painful swelling the udder of this cow had returned to approximately the normal volume, but she kept giving small quantities of milk that was putrid, watery and unfit for consumption. In vain I looked for the cause of this change and I decided to give the following advice, that did not satisfy me at all: ‘The cow is too fat, she should see the butcher and another one should be bought.’ This was done accordingly. After four or five months the new cow was affected in exactly the same way as the first, but this cow lacked the fat condition, and did therefore not allow me to bring this in association with an unfortunate mastitis.This forced me to go deeper into the case and to look elsewhere for the starting-point of the infection of these two cows. After a tour through the stables, a little bit of searching and asking some questions of the cattle-maid I found out  […] that the bedding of the stables had been taken from the straw-mattresses, used by the numerous and various boarders. Probably my enemies must be found here. Therefore I made them give up the use of this straw and made it replaced by more natural bedding, namely fresh straw that had not served anyone. I treated the cow: she recovered.

I should not have published this notice if I had not been supported by the next, third fact; some time ago I was called to a small farm close to town to treat a mastitis of the same nature as the preceding ones. I did not fail to ask of the bedding: that had its origin in the purchase of straw, made by the infantry regiment of the garrison of Vitré, and it had served too for straw-mattresses for the military men. I don’t want to comment on it.

[…]

Until now I have accused all kinds of more or less vague causes, which are known and have been described as coincidental causes. Now I think I can blame one, if not a general, then at least a frequent, cause of this disease: the infectious nature of bedding that has served as the fillings of straw-mattresses.”

It is noteworthy to read how cautious Joquan has formulated the general discussion at the end: it is the infectious nature of the straw, used in the mattresses, that has to be blamed.

Mastitis and epidemiology

Some provocative arguments about epidemiology by Alex Broadbent, a philosopher of epidemiology in Johannesburg (SA), on his epidemiology blog.

“(1) It is hard to use results which one reasonably suspects might soon be found incorrect.”

“(2) Often, epidemiological results are such that a prospective user reasonably suspects that they will soon be found incorrect.”

“(3) Therefore, often, it is hard to use epidemiological results.”

 “I think that (1) does not need supporting: it is obviously true (or obviously enough for these purposes). The weight is on (2), and my argument for (2) is that from the outside, it is simply too hard to tell whether a given issue – for example, the effect of HRT on heart disease, or the effect of acetaminophen (paracetamol) on asthma – is still part of an ongoing debate, or can reasonably be regarded as settled. The problem infects even results that epidemiologists would widely regard as settled: the credibility of the evidence on the effect of smoking on lung cancer is not helped by reversals over HRT, for example, because from the outside, it is not unreasonable to wonder what the relevant difference is between the pronouncements on HRT and the pronouncements on lung cancer and smoking. There is a difference: my point is that epidemiology lacks a clear framework for saying what it is.”

 (Alex Broadbent on his Philosophy of Epidemiology Blog, 2 september 2012) 
ttp://philosepi.wordpress.com/author/philosepi/page/2/

Do these arguments affect the epidemiological results of mastitis investigations?

There were no comments on Broadbent’s blog, and I do not think mine will raise comments either, but feel free if you want.