We all know what a dragon is, roughly.  They are and remain some of the most popular beasts in both muggle and wizarding  folklore, a testament to their power and number before witches and wizards withdrew from the muggle world and took these famed beasts with them.  Until the establishment of the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy in 1692 and the years leading up to it, many muggles had contact with dragons.  St. George was a famous slayer of a Welsh Green, and Ragnar Lothbrok, who is known to have killed a Norwegian Ridgeback which was later morphed into a giant serpent in muggle myth.  However, these dragonslayers of old can hardly be called dragonologists.  Even in wizarding legend, there are many valiant tales of brave wizards who took on the great beast, but less such myths about those who studied them up close.  This perhaps explains why before 1400, we have very little documentation of those who took on the study of these beasts, although perhaps some did.  With the writing of his works around the middle to end of this century, Quang Po really gives us the first basis for what we might nowadays recognise as a dragonologist.  Although more interested in and famed for discovering many uses for the Chinese Fireball's eggs in potion making, he was also privileged enough to apparently gain a rapport with his local dragon, using it to observe their anatomy, feeding and breeding habits.  The first wizarding scholar to provide documentation that we know of on the subjects, Quang Po gave the wizarding community the first real blue print for what we would now recognise as Dragonology.

In the late 1600s, a band of dragon enthusiasts came together in Bavaria.  They were wizards from many disciplines of magizoology, including a crup breeder and a field observer of hippogriffs.  They were on their way to observe a particularly large Norwegian Ridgeback, apparently hiding somewhere in the Eastern Alps.  Being attenders at the recently founded London Institute for Magizoology - then just a fledging organisation of the magizoological elite - they recorded meticulously their entire trip, from what food they ate in order not to tempt the dragon and the enchantments they placed on their tents.  These papers were then subsequently ordered, dated and published by a Professor Hans Hanson, who named it 'Dragonology: A Study in the Field of a Dragon's Native Habitat.' This became the leading textbook for generations of dragon experts, who were perhaps a little miffed they didn't think of the idea first.  As it turned out, individual observation became a thing of the past.  Dangerous and without the ability for round the clock observation, instead magizoological institutes and magical academies began sending out select teams to document dragon habits, different from the task forces sent out by wizard governing bodies simply to contain them or to handle muggle related incidents.  Thus, field observation was born and the discipline of dragonology was formed.  

To this day, teams around the world are sent out, with less and less fatalities every year as we come together as a community and work on new ways to keep researchers safe.  Whilst we still know relatively little about these magical beasts in relation to many others, the discipline gains enthusiasts more and more.  With the advent of dragon reservations and sanctuaries across the world, we are finally on our way to truly mastering the discipline.