Art, science and mathematics: new approaches to animal health problems in the agricultural industry

This article is about change; particularly the prospect for change in veterinary research during the last decade and a half of the 20th century. The title encapsulates the idea that veterinary medicine, if it is to be effective, periodically has to change its approach to solving animal health problems; that over the last century we have witnessed one major change, that from veterinary medicine as an art to veterinary medicine as a science, and that we are probably on the brink of another change, moving from a scientific or more correctly an experimental approach to a mathematical or observational approach.