Graduate Student, History
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Stuart McCook
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About
My dissertation explores the transformative effect of disease on the larger livestock industry of North America. To do this, my project examines the eradication of bovine tuberculosis in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Ontario and New York State. A largely comparative study, Ontario and New York State were both significant cattle centres in this period and areas that experienced significant rates of bovine tuberculosis. The thesis explores how eradication took shape and was successfully implemented. Through this comparative study, a larger picture of the challenges of eradicating disease in livestock generally is demonstrated. Some of these challenges include the implications of disease for public health, competing or different bureaucratic and other stakeholder attitudes towards disease, the dramatic economic implications of disease, and the environmental dimensions of disease such as interstate travel, and farm conditions, among others.
