[From animal medical practitioners to veterinarians: historical note on animal medicine and the São Bento de Olinda Graduate School of Veterinary Medicine, Pernambuco (1912-1926)].

The historical aspects of animal medicine indicate an epistemological break with the old practices of animal medical treatment, with introduction of the principles of rationality in the eighteenth century in the formation of veterinary doctors. These healing practices, meanwhile, did not begin with the implementation of graduate courses in animal medicine. In colonial Brazil and, in particular, in the State of Pernambuco, historical records can be found of animal medical practices that were later incorporated into the curriculum of the São Bento de Olinda Graduate School of Veterinary, marked by the presence of a unique evaluation in Brazil: the physicum examination.