“First Veterinary School in Spain and its Evolution: A Historical Account Presented by OCV”

The Collegiate Veterinary Organization (OCV) has presented the book ‘First Veterinary School in Spain. Paseo de Recoletos, Madrid 1793-1863’which includes the evolution of the profession and the history of the first school in Spain that was designed by Sabatini in the place that today occupies the National Library.

The book details the architectural aspects, as well as the operation and the events that led to the change from the traditional empirical albeitería to the scientific veterinary.

Thus, the five chapters collect changes and other issues such as the educational model, the teaching staff, the subjects, the organization of the School, the influence of political changes or the support of the Duke of Alagón, among others.

The investigator angel savior has highlighted the level of the teachers, the “constant” updating of knowledge in the study plans and their public service by offering the population to treat diseases of equids and dogs.

Three-dimensional infographics have been made with “historical fidelity” of the former veterinary center located between 1793 and 1863 on the current site of the National Library.

The building occupied a total of four hectares on Paseo de Recoletos, but Madrid’s urban development in the second half of the 19th century caused its demolition and transfer of the institution.

Thus, the reconstruction that the book incorporates is the first carried out of this complex, designed by the architect Francisco Sabatini, of which only its main façade and a brief description of 1811 were known.

For the president of the OCV, Luis Alberto Calvothe work reflects the change of a profession focused on the treatment of equines “but which quickly considers epizootics as a national problem, as a social problem, in whose solution the veterinary science must assume an obvious role, within a vision of public healthdefinitely”.