“American Veterinary Medicine.” 
Response to a toast at the Banquet given to Prof. A. Liautard, at the 25th Anni- 
versary of the American Veloriniry College. Manhattan Hotel, New York, September 
5th, i8jq, by I)r. K. S. Huidekoper. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 
The toast given to me to respond to “American Veterinary 
Medicine,” is so closely associated with the man, whom we 
meet to do honor to to-night, that what I can say in response to 
it would be almost equally appropriate had the title been 
Alexander Liautard. 
I ask you, gentlemen, to join me in a bumper to him, 
scientist, practitioner, teacher, friend, a native of the country 
which first gave birth to Veterinary Schools, and stands at the 
head of the Veterinary Profession to-day, and an adopted son of 
this our great country, which has been so much benefited by 
his sojourn amongst us, that his name will be an indelible 
landmark in American Veterinary Medicine. 
I)r. Liautard! your health! 
Any history of Veterinary Medicine in America is practically 
confined to the last half of this century, with the exception of 
an attempt made in i8c6, by Dr. Benjamin Rush, the great 
physician, patriot and statesman, who endeavored at that time 
to have a Veterinary School added to the University of 
Pennsylvania. For the rest of the first fifty years of the century 
we can find no trace of any advance being made. Early in the 
fifties Dr. George Dadd, a man who seems to have been of 
more than usual intelligence, appeared in Boston and organized 
an attempt at a Veterinary School; and at the same time 
published, for a year or two, a Veterinary Journal. The school 
itself seems to have been soon abandoned, though the books and 
seal of it passed to other hands and went to Philadelphia, and afterwards into Ohio, and further West, where, on into the sixties, 
diplomas were issued bearing' the forged signatures of men 
already dead and others. 
In 1857 an Act for the incorporation of the New York 
College of Veterinary Surgeons was signed at Albany, and an 
organization was commenced with Dr. John Busteed as Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy and Surgery, but only a paper organization 
was kept up for several years without any real work being done. 
1862 is the year from which dates the commencement of a 
tangible effort in the establishment of a body of Veterinarians, 
who were to give to American Veterinary Medicine its first 
history. A number of Veterinarians met in Philadelphia to 
perfect an Association which was the origin of what was to 
become the American Veterinary Medical Association of to- 
day. They purchased a minute book, which I believe is still 
used by the Association, but a general quarrel seems to have 
taken place and the records of the first meeting were destroyed 
—you will find in the book to which I refer the stubs of the 
first pages which have been cut out. 
On the 9th of June, 1863, a meeting was called at the 
Astor House, in New York, which is generally now considered 
the first meeting of the Association. 
Among those present were: Wm. A. Wisdom, of Delaware; 
Dr. John Busteed, Alexander Liautard, R. S. Copeman, R. H. 
Curtis, A. Large, Wm. J. M. Cown, Louis Brandt, C. C. 
Price, W. Bannister, John Budd, E. Nostrand, Charles 
Burden, and James Mulligan of New York; Chas. M. 
Wood, E. M. Thayer, Wm. Saunders, R. Farley, J. H. Stickney, 
James Penniman, O. H. Flagg and R. Wood, from Massachu- 
setts; E. F. Ripley, from Maine; R. McClure, G. Mellor, J. 
C. Essenwein, E. H. Palmer and Isaiah Michener, from Penn- 
sylvania; G. W. Bowler, Ohio; Jacob Ditts, J. C. Higgins, W. 
R. Mankin, R. Jennings, A. Phillips, Jacob Phillips, J. C. 
Walton, A. C. Budd and S. Humphrey, from New Jersey; and, 
J. K. Quickfall and John Arnold, from London. 
This meeting seems to have given a more general interest 
and active start in Veterinary affairs. 
Drs. Rawson and Busteed and Alfred Roe, Esq., obtained 
a number of subscriptions and, by arrangement with Dr. 
Liautard, leased his Infirmary at 179 Lexington Avenue, for 
College and Hospital purposes. On November 23d, 1864, they 
opened the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons. Dr. 
2 Liautard was appointed Superintendent of the Hospital, and 
was the first professor of Anatomy, Operative Surgery and 
Clinics. 
Dr. James Robertson was one of the first graduates, and he 
became a member of the teaching faculty in 1868. In that 
year a reception was given to Prof. Gamgee, of London, who 
visited this country to investigate cattle diseases. 
During this decade there were few graduate Veterinarians 
in this country. Dr. Liautard held his diploma from the 
Imperial Veterinary Schools of France; Dr. Stickney, of Boston, 
had received his from the Royal Veterinary College, London; 
and the dozen others were foreigners, mostly Englishmen, with 
the Royal College degree. In 1875, the apple of discord again 
fell into the cage of the profession and the faculty of the New 
York College resigned almost in a body and organized the 
American Veterinary College, which is now completing its 
quarter century of existence. 
This decade saw the establishment of the two Veterinary 
Schools in Canada, and the founding of the American Veterinary 
Review, by the U. S. Veterinary Association, with Prof. 
Liautard as its first editor. Up to this time the meetings of the 
United States Veterinary Medical Association had been confined 
to Philadelphia, New York and Boston. 
In the eighties more rapid strides were made. The United 
States Veterinary Medical Association, extended its meetings 
to Cincinnati, Baltimore, and the West, securing a membership 
really more National in character. Three year Veterinary 
schools were established at Harvard, ar.d the University of 
Pennsylvania, and a number of Veterinary schools sprang up 
through the West, in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas 
and elsewhere. The Bureau of Animal Industry was founded 
in 1884, under the strong guidance of Dr. 1). E. Salmon, and 
after exterminating contagious pleuro-pneumonia from the 
Ameiican continent, became a power which brought the value 
of the Veterinarian before the public and gave new openings 
for a livelihood to the Veterinary graduates of the new schools. 
In 1880 the Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veteri- 
nary Archives was established. During the eighties a number 
of State Veterinary and other local Societies were organized, 
one of which, that of Pennsylvania, whipped and led by the 
untiring zeal of Dr. W. Horace Hoskins has become a rival of 
the American Association in the value of the work it has done. 
3 The last decade of the 19th Century has seen a steady ad- 
vance in the work of the previous ten years. The United 
States Veterinary Medical Association has spread its still 
further West, and over the Southern Mountains of Tennessee, 
and it has extended its hand of professional brotherhood to 
Canada in the North, becoming the “American” instead of the 
“United States” Association. Most of the two year schools of 
former days have increased their standard of education to the 
recognized minimum of a three years course. 
Laws, regulating the practice of Veterinary Medicine and 
establishing State boards of Veterinary Examiners, have been 
enacted in a number of States, and show a good disposition on 
the part of the various communities, however stupidly and 
justly they may, like many other laws, err in their results. 
This closing year of the century finds old differences healed 
here in New York City and an amalgamation of the two colleges 
which separated twenty-five years ago, but which now put 
shoulder to shoulder under the new name of the New York 
American Veterinary College, or the Veterinary School of the 
New York University, with Professor Liautard still holding 
the reins. Now that unity has been established we will hope 
to see the Assembly at Albany give to the Metropolitan school 
the same financial support which it dees to its rural sister in 
Ithaca. 
In' literature there has not been as much accomplished as 
might be hoped for. The American Veterinary Review ar.d 
The Journal of Comparative Medicine stand proud peers of 
their European colleagues, but their standard cf excellence has 
been at the sore cost, of labor and money, of a few enthusiastic 
individuals. Some valuable scientific writings have emenated 
from the pens of employees of the Bureau of Animal Industry. 
Of practical Veterinary works, Prof. Liautard stands at the head 
of the authors, in numbers and value of his works. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I have occupied more time 
than I intended to do ar.d )et fird I have only given a summary 
of what I would like to have said. I believe the data of my 
headings to be accurate and that a detailed history of American 
Veterinary Medicine during this century would be valuable ar.d 
interesting if one would take the time to compile it. It has 
been a great pleasure to be at this meeting, and I thank you for 
your attention. 
4 But—Mr. Chairman, I will detain you for one word more : 
I believe that I have forgotten myself as a factor in the making 
of the history of American Veterinary Medicine. When, as an 
assistant of I)r. Joseph Leidy, the Anatomist, and Dr. D 
Hayes Agr.ew, the Surgeon, I took their advice; that the study 
of veterinary medicine opened up a field for a mere interestirg 
and broader scientific life than the routine of a simple human 
practitioner and prepared myself to found the Veterinary De- 
partment of the University of Pennsylvania; when I broadened 
my conception of animal life by becoming a Comparative Anato- 
mist instead of remaining a simple Human Anatomist; when I 
worked during two years in the laboratories of Nccard, Chau- 
veau and Pasteur, Virchow and Koch and Ercolani, familiariz- 
ing myself with the bacteriological studies which led to our 
present knowledge of Tuberculosis, Glanders, and the other 
contagious diseases; when, as a teacher for twenty years 1 
found that my most interestirg teacher and my most valued 
knowledge came from my study of Comparative Physiology, 
Pathology and Hygiene ; finally, when I added the diverse 
scientific knowledge, given me by my study of veterinary 
medicine, to the knowledge of human medicine which I had 
acquired at the University of Pennsylvania and in fifteen years 
of human practice, and had had the experience of fifteen years 
as a Chief Medical Officer of the National Guard of Pennsyl- 
vania, in which I had charge of such bodies of men as the 
thousands remaining in the Conemaugh Valley after the Johns- 
town flood, and 7,500 troops of Pennsylvania during the Home- 
stead riots : then, gentlemen, I was amused, though some of 
my friends were annoyed, last year when I became the best ad- 
vertised and the most universally damned “Horse Doctor” in 
America. 
The yelping of the Jackal newspapers, playirg upon the 
hysterical sentiment of the public, because they had no further 
sensational war news, or other exciting information to furnish, 
and who wanted to commence an attack on the administration, 
had picked me, because I had widered my knowledge of medi- 
cine in learning the scientific truths of diverse animal life 
instead of limiting it to that of one animal, man, and found 
opprobium in the title of “ Horse Doctor.” To me personally7 
the attacks of that portion of the Press was like water cn a 
duck’s back. I knew that I had the ccrfiderce, ard recogni- 
tion of my work, which was all I desired, cf the President, of 
5 the Secretary of War, of General Miles, and of my own Com 
manding General, Major-General Brooke, now Governor- 
General of Cuba. I knew that the First Army Corps, of which 
I had the medical charge, had a better organization, better 
hospitals, more medical supplies, and, up to the time I left 
Chickamauga for Puerto Rico, a smaller sick list and death rate 
than that of the other Corps of the Army. All this is record 
in the official papers in Washington and will be history when 
they are published. Therefore I had no cause to regret that I 
was, and I am proud that I am, a Veterinarian. 
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