Negotiating Value Comparing Human and AnimalFracture Care in IndustrialSocieties

摘要

At the beginning of the twentieth century, human and veterinary surgeonsfaced the challenge of a medical marketplace transformed by technology. Thesocioeconomic value ascribed to their patients was changing, reflecting theincreasing mechanization of industry and the decreasing dependence of societyon nonhuman animals for labor. In human medicine, concern for the economicconsequences of fractures "pathologized" any significant level of postthera-peutic disability, a productivist perspective contrary to the traditional corpusof medical values. In contrast, veterinarians adapted to the mechanization ofhorsepower by shifting their primary professional interest to companion animals;a type of patient generally valued for the unique emotional attachment of theowner and not their productive capacity. The economic rationalization of humanfracture care and the "sentimental" transformation of veterinary orthopedicexpertise indicate how these specialists utilized increasingly convergentrhetorical arguments to justify the application of innovative fracture caretechnologies to their human and animal patients.