From the 1940s, reproductive physiology and livestock genetics transformed dairy cattle breeding and became, in conjunction with the new reproductive technology of artificial insemination, important drivers of agricultural modernization in most countries with significant dairying. While this is well known, we know less about the longer-term interplay between specifically veterinary interests in reproduction and the institutional development of cattle breeding. In the present paper, I therefore examine the veterinary disciplining of cattle reproduction—its constitution as a veterinary scientific discipline and the extension of veterinary control over it—in mid-twentieth century Sweden. I show how veterinary scientists derived legitimacy for their fledgling discipline by engaging with the problems of practical breeding, and that in doing so they also exercised influence over breeding’s development. By making bulls’ reproductive disturbances visible and framing them as hereditary, they undermined the conservative interests of commercial breeders. The development of veterinary reproductive science thereby played an important role in reshaping the culture, economy, and regulations of cattle breeding in Sweden as it shifted from a prewar regime dominated by elite breeders to a postwar regime that, ostensibly, served all dairy farmers in the country.

从 1940 年代开始，生殖生理学和家畜遗传学改变了奶牛的育种方式，并与人工授精这一新的生殖技术相结合，成为大多数奶牛业发达的国家农业现代化的重要驱动力。虽然这是众所周知的，但我们对兽医在繁殖方面的特殊兴趣与养牛的制度发展之间的长期相互作用知之甚少。因此，在本文中，我研究了 20 世纪中叶瑞典对牛繁殖的兽医学科——其作为兽医科学学科的构成以及兽医对其控制的扩展。我展示了兽医科学家如何通过解决实际育种问题为他们的新兴学科获得合法性，并且在这样做的过程中，他们也对育种的发展产生了影响。通过使公牛的生殖障碍可见并将其定性为遗传，它们破坏了商业育种者的保守利益。因此，兽医生殖科学的发展在重塑瑞典养牛的文化、经济和法规方面发挥了重要作用，因为它从战前由精英育种者主导的制度转变为表面上为瑞典所有奶农服务的战后制度。国家。