Modern usage of the phrase "one-medicine" was popularized in the United States and Europe by Calvin Schwabe and the concept is attributed to Rudolph Virchow (3). It is applied today to the study of zoonotic disease and interventions in rural agricultural communities that share close living arrangements between people and their families, their pastoral work environment, and the animals for which they care. A recent movement in the United States, the "Medicine and Public Health" initiative (http://www.sph.uth.tmc.edu/mph/) recognized that human clinical medicine and public health communities had developed parallel but separate enterprises and there was a need to reassess this division. Medicine (focusing primarily on the health of individuals) and Public Health (with a population perspective) needed to find innovative and joint solutions to improve the health of the people of the United States. Similar schisms are evident between veterinary medicine and the agricultural industry in the United States and initiatives are underway to bridge these gaps. Integration of the two concepts of one-medicine and nidality provides an opportunity to apply a systems approach to dealing with emerging zoonotic diseases in today's global agricultural and industrial settings.