Veterinary History

Bunty Pumphrey
Sep 3
3 min read

Updated: Sep 25

Ah yes, veterinary history. Before you switch off I should explain. I am a secret agent. I’m a vet nurse by day and a veterinary historian by night.

Yes! I promise there is excitement in history and I’m here to prove it with an article on vets, history, cotton wool and Tolkien!

This month has brought some exciting news to my thesis. As I reach the tail end of the chronological time period I’m researching, I enter into the world of the Gamgees – a familiar name not because of their veterinary role, but because of Samwise Gamgee in the works of JRR Tolkien.

While I visualise Samwise when I am researching, I had assumed it was a coincidence – until I had a meeting with my supervisors and the relationship between Tolkien and the “real” Gamgees was mentioned.

Word association

Although it appears Tolkien did not know the Gamgees personally, he knew of the family name and the surgical product that Sampson Gamgee had created. As Samwise was married to the Cotton family, Tolkien chose to use Gamgee as he knew it as associated with cotton wool.

In a letter, Tolkien wrote:

“The reason of my use of the name is this. I lived near Birmingham as a child, and we used ‘gamgee’ as a word for ‘cotton-wool’; so in my story the families of Cotton and Gamgee are connected.

“I did not know as a child, though I know now, that ‘Gamgee’ was shortened from ‘gamgee-tissue’, and that [it was] named after its inventor (a surgeon I think) who lived between 1828 and 1886.”

SOURCE: https://apilgriminnarnia.com

One man, one health

However, Sampson Gamgee was one of 3 brothers. With John being a veterinary surgeon and the principal of Edinburgh’s second veterinary school. This school was short lived but Gamgee remained an active member of the veterinary education community.

The relationship between human and animal health care has been close for as long as we have cared for animals. Sampson Gamgee was taught by Professor Sharpey of University College [London] who was also on the RCVS examiners board for England. The reciprocal relationship between the veterinary profession and the surgical profession is evident on these personal, but also at institutional levels.

Sampsons network in the veterinary field would have been beneficial as in the human field he was reported as taking:

“…a forceful interest in medical politics, playing an active part in the BMA’s attempts to obtain direct representation of the medical profession on the General Medical Council.”

SOURCE: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

One health

When the RCVS and the profession were negotiating to protect the title of veterinary surgeon, Sampson would have been available to share knowledge of the attempts to amend the medical act of 1858. Although, somewhat surprisingly, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, they state:

“He never took part in affairs outside his profession (The Lancet, 590, 607).”

SOURCE: www.oxforddnb.com

…although this may be because veterinary history is often overlooked, or it may be that the biographer felt veterinary and surgery were synonymous professions.