It’s hard to pin down exactly when domestic animals began to receive specialized medical care from humans, although archaeological evidence indicates shepherds in what is now Western Asia used basic herbal remedies for sick sheepThe first archaeological evidence of an animal being given complex veterinary care is a cow that lived about 5,000 years ago in what is now France. The cow was given a procedure called trepanation, which was also performed on humans at that time.

The first known text on veterinary medicine was written in Egypt during the 12th Dynasty. Known as the Kahun Papyrus, it also includes a large amount of information on female reproductive health. The Chinese were also using herbal remedies for animals, and these remedies are part of the first writings on Chinese traditional medicine, and view the physiology of human and non-human mammals as basically similar.The first written evidence of these practices dates from about 1,100BCE. The Lakota likewise saw humans and animals as physiologically similar, and used the same basic approaches to treating humans and horses.

By 1755BCE, veterinary medicine was common enough as its own discipline in Western Asia to get a specific mention in sections [224 and 225 of Hammurabi’s Code] (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp). The Edicts of Ashoka, written in the 3rd century BCE, also specifically mention medical treatment for animals as well as outlining other standards for treating animals humanely Aristotle and Hippocrates also studied animal diseases and potential treatments.

The first named individual who could be called a veterinarian was a man named Urlugaledinna, who lived in Mesopotamia around 2300BCE. Contemporary cuneiform records identify him as an “expert on healing animals”, and he also invented several medical tools for performing surgery on human patients. In 130BCE, we have a mention of Greek horse breeder and horse veterinarian Metrodoros.

Other Sources:

Veterinary Epidemiology by Michael Thrusfield
Veterinary Medicine: An Illustrated History by Robert Dunlop and David J Williams