As an exercise in imagination and fantasy, which undoubtedly refreshes the soul and makes the heart happy, every August 6, I imagine those first students enrolled in the Higher Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine of Santa Catalina to access the title “Capacity to Practice Veterinary Science”.

the year ran 1883 when that day classes began to teach veterinary medicine in Argentina and that’s the reason why On August 6, Veterinary Day is celebrated in our country.

A year ago, in 1882a delegate from the national government had finished hire in Europe the five Belgian professors and one French professor who would be the founders of the Institute. The Nation woke up and our profession too.

In 1883 studies began and five years later another August 6, but from 1888, they gave themselves the first diplomas, to the first three veterinarians received in the country: the mendocino Guardian Angel Martinez, the porteño Jose Maria Leonardo Agote and the Catamarcan Calixto Ferreyra.

They are, for me, the symbol of this wonderful profession that accompanies each Argentine in the city and in the countryside, from the moment he gets up until he goes to bed.

But it was not until a century later, in 1983 and through a decree law of the national government, that this date was officially established as the Day of the Argentine Veterinarian.

There is a veterinary doctor in the first glass of water in the morning, guaranteeing its purity, in that milk that feeds our children and adults, from the cow to the factory, going by the tender eyes of the dog we love, the meat we eatthe wool of our coat and the rural work horse. In each step where an animal is directly or indirectly involved, a veterinarian appears

In every daily act, behind every detail in modern life even if you don’t see it there is a veterinary doctor, who works in the Public health, in the care of food, in its production, in the care of animals, in laboratories, in research, day after day as an accurate and unequivocal health professional, the concept coined so recently and that those pioneers of Santa Catalina, knew how to learn and defend in the incipient Argentina.

Dogs, cats, cows, bulls, horses, goats, chickens and wild animals, laboratories, public health, food, drug production, etc. No matter the species or the area of ​​​​action, there is a veterinarian for each of them.

There are veterinary doctors working in the purity of the water that we drink and veterinary doctors in the criminalistics sections of many Argentine police forces, the veterinary doctor is present from the first glass of milk we drink until the last glass of water that closes the day.

In each food there is a veterinary doctor present and its actions are manifested without a doubt from the affection of our pet to public health as a fundamental part of it.

let’s toast for the present and for the future. let’s toast for and with our friend, the one who takes care of everyone, our veterinary doctor. Let’s toast that today is his day. Greetings to all and above all to colleagues!

*Prof. Dr. Juan Enrique Romero @drromerook is a veterinarian. Specialist in University Education. Master in Psychoimmunoneuroendocrinology. Former Director of the School Hospital for Small Animals (UNLPam). University Professor in several Argentine universities. International speaker.

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