The History of Veterinary Medicine
USA 1910 - 1920
by Roger Ross, DVM
FoxNest Veterinary Hosptial
Seneca, SC
Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well that is the way I know I am an American. -
- President Wilson -
1916: The 10th Calvary Crosses the Mexican Border
Chasing Pancho Villa in what the United States
called the "Mexican Expedition"
1910-1920 USA
Population: 92,407,000
Life Expectancy: Male 48.4 Female: 51.8
Average Salary $750 / year
The Ziegfeld girls earned $75/week.
Unemployed 2,150,000
National Debt: $1.15 billion
Union Membership: 2.1 million Strikes 1,204
Attendance: Movies 30 million per week
Lynchings: 76 Divorce: 1/1000
Vacation: 12 day cruise $60
Whiskey $3.50 / gallon, Milk $.32 / gallon
Speeds make automobile safety an issue
25,000 performers tour 4,000 U.S. theaters
1910's
1910
Wild blueberry domesticated.
Demonstrated that pasteurization kills toxin-producing organisms in raw milk without destroying beneficial lactic acid bacteria.
Insecticide and Fungicide Act passed.
Brucella abortus first isolated from cattle in the U.S.
Of gainfully employed persons, 31 percent were engaged in agriculture.
Demonstrated that typhus fever is transmitted by lice.
1911
First Farm Bureau formed in Broome County, NY.
Discovered a virus that can cause cancer in chickens; first experimental proof of an infectious agent of cancer.
Italy annexes Tripoli and defeats the Turks
Manchu dynasty falls and the Chinese Republic announced
1912 EKG Invented
1912
Federal Plant Quarantine Act passed.
Thomas Hunt Morgan announced his theory of genes; began using the term 'gene’ in 1904 to describe individual parts of chromosomes that control particular characteristics.
USDA makes initial crosses between Lincoln and Ramboullet sheep breeds, leading to the Columbia breed.
Demonstrated that drought begins when soil moisture is so diminished that vegetation is unable to absorb water from the soil rapidly enough to replace the water lost to the air by transpiration.
John William Brown, 1912
The first black veterinarian to earn his DVM degree at Kansas State Agricultural College (KSAC) entered college at the age of sixteen. He had previously attended Fort Scott High School in Bourbon County, Kansas. Dr. Brown was head of the Division of Agricultural Instruction at the Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, during 1912 and 1913.
Eighteen men received their DVM degrees on Thursday, June 13, 1912, and one received his diploma on December 18, 1912.
The Titanic Sinks
Arizona and New Mexico becomes States
War in the Balkan States are a precursor to WW1
1912 Harley Davidson; these would soon be used by Sargeants carrying the newly invented Thompson Machine Guns
during the Mexican Expedition
1912: one of 5 Russian Airships
1913
Virus-Serum Toxin Act passed.
Forerunner of the light tractor introduced.
First U.S. veterinary license issued for production of anti-hog-cholera serum.
Hundreds of thousands of animals were wounded or killed in the First World War and thousands served in the veterinary corps and many thousands served training, feeding, and cleaning in military stables
1914
World War I began in Europe.
Smith-Lever Act formalized cooperative agricultural extension work.
Cultures of nitrogen-fixing bacteria supplied to legume growers for the purpose of increasing the plants' nitrogen-fixing capacity.
During World War I, vast numbers of dogs were employed as: sentries; messengers; ammunition, and food carriers; scouts; sled dogs; draught dogs; guard dogs; ambulance dogs; ratters; Red Cross casualty dogs: and even cigarette dogs. Thousands of pigeons were used to carry messages.
America with the exception of a few sled dogs in Alaska was the only country to take part in World War I, that had very few service dogs within its military.
The French, British and Belgians by 1918 had at least 20,000 dogs on the battlefield, the Germans 30,000. But America's war department felt that now that they were 'over there,' the war would be quicky over and there would be no need for any dogs!
Hoof & Mouth Disease breaks out in the US starting in Chicago and reaching out to 22 other states. The disease is eradicated in the U.S. by applying quarantines, extreme decontamination programs, and the slaughtering of 172,222 animals.
Panama Canal opens
Robert Goddard begins rocket experiments
1915
Discovered bacteriophage.
Tetanus epidemic on the battle field
Einstein introduces theory of relativity
Junkers builds first fighter plane
Jazz in New Orleans
1916
Stainless steel invented.
Theory of shell shock
Irish Revolt suppressed
Blood refridgerated for transfusions
US Troops land in Santo Domingo
Calcium arsenate developed for use on boll weevil.
Federal Farm Loan Act passed.
Federal Highway Act provided for cooperation with states in construction of rural post roads.
Japanese beetles discovered in New Jersey.
1920 picture of a veterinarian at work
1917
A system for growing modern hybrid corn developed.
United States entered World War I.
Demonstrated that raw milk could transmit a bacterium, Brucella abortus, that causes brucellosis in cattle and undulant fever in humans.
Long-term study of dairy improvement started; increased production per cow from 542 pounds of butterfat in 1920 to more than 720 pounds today.
Discovered temperature necessary to kill trichinae.
Trans Siberian Railway completed just in time for the start of the Russian Civil War and Revolution ending in the Communist Soviet Union
Tanks introduced into the war
Chicago becomes the center of Jazz
Chicago also becomes the country's largest meat market and many veterinarians are employed as meat inspectors
1918
World Wide Flu epidemic kills 22 million
Czar Nicholas and family executed
1919
Prohibition of alcohol and rise of organized crime
First experiments with short wave radio
Steel strike in United States
Afghan - British war leading to the massacre of the British
Click here for other pages on the history of veterinary medicine:
BRASS MONKEYS
a little historical fun tidbit
In the heyday of sailing ships, all war ships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannon fired round iron cannon balls.
It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon.
But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck?
The best storage method devised was a square based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of thirty cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon.
There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling out from under the others.
The solution was a metal plate called a Monkey" with sixteen round indentations. But, if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it.
The solution to the rusting problem was to make "Brass Monkeys."
Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey.
Thus, it was quite literally, "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey!"
(And all this time a lot of you thought this was a vulgar expression)
This page is about US and Veterinary History up to 1920
The Progressive Era lasted from 1895 until World War I.
This was a period of unrest and reform.
Monopolies continued in spite of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Social problems flourished in the U.S. During the 1910s labor unions continued to grow as the middle classes became more and more unhappy. Unsafe working conditions were underscored by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in which 145 female workers were killed. Children were hired to work in factories and mines for long hours in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Though efforts to pass a federal law proved unsuccessful, by the middle of this decade every state had passed a minimum age law.
A commission found that up to 20% of the children living in cities were undernourished, education took second place to hunger and while children worked, only one-third enrolled in elementary school and less than 10% graduated from high school.
The status of the Negro worsened. Skilled negro workers were barred from the AF of L.
Women were also striving for equality.The first suffrage parade was held in 1910 - the 19th amendment finally ratified in 1919.
The Over There decade meant more than just sending our 'boys' over to fight during WWI. American became the most highly industrialized country during this time. Mass production of cars created a nationwide prosperity and resulted in one of the most profound social changes in America's history.
Popular culture became a lucrative national product for the United States. All over the world people were dancing our dance crazes, listening to our jazz tunes, wearing our fashions, falling for our pop fads, and buying our products.
Tobacco was a big business, with immigrants to New York City accounting for 25% of the tobacco purchasing.
Historic events include the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912 when more than 1500 people lost their lives.
The first moving assembly line began in 1914 and in 1915, the one millionth Model T ($345) rolled off the assembly line.
Initiation of the The National Park Service and Prohibition (1919).
Jim Thorpe, an American Indian, won gold medals at the Olympics (although his medals were later taken away because he had played baseball for a salary earlier in his career),
The first parachute jump was made.
The Girl Scouts of America were formed.
The Presidents were William Howard Taft 1909-1913 and
Woodrow Wilson 1913-1921
From a history of the Veterinary Program at Washington State University:
1905 A four-year curriculum leading to a B.S. is introduced alongside the three-year curriculum. The curricula are conducted simultaneously until 1917 when the three-year program is abolished.
Also this year, Wyatt E. Ralston, an Ohio State graduate, is added to the faculty as, "house surgeon." His salary is $900 per year.
Mar. 11, 1907
The first state Veterinary Practice Act is signed into law granting the governor the power to appoint an examining board composed of three graduate veterinarians, one to be the state veterinarian.
All graduate veterinarians in the state are required to show proof of graduation by July 1.
Non-graduate veterinarians who've practiced in the state for not less than two years are grandfathered in.
Interestingly, graduates of human medical schools can become licensed veterinarians in Washington simply by showing proof of graduation.
Fall 1907
The first annual Vet-Pharmic football game is played. The event becomes a major campus attraction until 1957 when the advent of modern protective gear and concerns for student safety saw the contest fade away.
The Pharmics are said to have won only three to four games over the years.
For a time basketball games take the place of the football game but they lack the same appeal and they too, disappear in the 1960s.
The annual football game is followed each year by the Hobo Dance.
For the dance, male students and faculty grow their beards out in honor of the vagrant namesake of the dance.
Dancing, drink, and merriment often flow into the following morning. It too, is done away with in 1957 after a particularly raucous occasion also raises concerns for student safety.
Nov. 13, 1914
Two cars of cattle enroute from Wisconsin to Roy, Wash. arrive in Spokane. Animal health officials have previously been warned that the animals had been exposed to foot-and-mouth disease in a St. Paul, Minn. stockyard.
Quick action on the part of veterinarians, state agricultural officials, and a cooperative owner, stops a potential outbreak before it can happen. The positive diagnosis was made on Nov. 16 and by Nov. 21 all the cattle had been destroyed and cremated and all temporary holding pens, litter, etc. had been burned.
1920
The college's first African-American student, Winfred A. Jordan, graduates. Jordan is a transfer student from the soon-too-close San Francisco Veterinary College.
1926
The first roads are pushed into Ilwaco, Washington. Prior to this, all transportation to the area was by boat, hindering veterinary care among the coastal farms.
JUST A LITTLE OVER
HUNDRED YEARS AGO.......
The year is 1902 , just a little over hundred years ago ... what a difference a century makes.
Here are the U.S. statistics for 1902:
1. The average life expectancy in the U.S. was forty-seven (47).
2. Only 14 Percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
3. Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
4. There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. and only 144 miles of paved roads.
5. The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
6. Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
7. The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
8. The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents an hour.
9. The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
10. A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
11. More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
12. Ninety percent of all U.S. physicians had no college education. Instead, they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
13. Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee cost fifteen cents a pound.
14. Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
15. Canada passed a law prohibiting poor people from entering the country for any reason.
16. The five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
17. The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
18. The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was 30.
19. Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented.
20. There were no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
21. One in ten U.S. adults couldn't read or write. Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
22. Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at corner drugstores. According to one pharmacist, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and the bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
23. Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic.
24. There were only about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
As they say, "We've come a long way, Baby!"
