VETERINARY MEDICINE. Veterinary medicine is the science and art that deals with the prevention, cure, alleviation and extermi nation of disease among domestic animals. It includes the appropriate management of domes tic animals, as well as the nature, causes and treaunent of the disorders to which they are subiect.
In Europe the first veterinary school was instituted in 1761 at Lyons; in 1776, that at Alfort, near Paris, was opened. Other veterinary schools were established in Europe as follows: Turin, 1769; Copenhagen, 1773; Vienna, 1775; Dresden, 1776; Hanover, 1778; Budapest, 1787; Berlin and Munich each one in 1790; London, i792; and Madrid, 1793. In London, besides the older institution, now called the Royal Veterinary College, Camden town, there was a second established at Bays water in 1865. In 1844 the veterinary surgeons of Great Britain obtained a charter constituting them a corporation under the title of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and empower ing them to appoint examiners and grant li censes or diplomas, the holders of which are members of this body (M.R.C.V.S.).
In the United States the first step toward systematic veterinary education was the grant ing of a charter in 1852 by the legislature of Pennsylvania and the securing of a subscrip tion of $40,000 to serve in the organization of a veterinary school in Philadelphia. No students responded until 1859-60 when two were secured, one of whom was a graduate of the Boston Vet erinary College which had been chartered in 1855. Both of these schools had a short life. Philadelphia, however, now has its veterinary school in connection with the University of Pennsylvania. In 1857 the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons was chartered and in 1875 the Ainerican Veterinary College was opened. These two New York City schools were maintained as proprietary institutions till 1899 when they were placed on a strictly uni versity footing. by consolidation under New York University. Their doors did not remain open long. In the succeeding years veterinary schools sprang into existence in many of the large cities, Chicago, Kansas City, Saint Jo seph, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Washington, Grand Rapids, Detroit, etc. All of them were private institutions, dependent on their financial returns, with a curriculum of 10 or 12 mouths, representing two years of five or six months each.
On 7 Oct. 1868 Cornell University opened with a chair of veterinary medicine. Special
courses of purely veterinary subjects were of fered, and m the succeeding. years four stu dents received the Cornell degree of B.V.S. One of these organized the Bureau of Animal Industry in 1884 and far many years sertred as its head; another became director of United States Meat Inspection Service; another in conjunction with a later Cornell graduate dem onstrated that the Southern cattle tick (Mar garopots amealatus) was the carrier frotn beast to beast of the microbian cause (Piropiarina bigensinnen) of Texas cattle fever—thus lay ing the foundation of the later discovery that one mosquito (Anopheles) carries the microbe of malaria, a second (Stegotnyia) that of yel low fever,. and a third (Culex) the blood para site (filarial).
In 1894 by enactment of the New York State legislature the Cornell chair of veterinary medicine became the first State veterinary col lege M America. Other State veterinary col leges later were established in connection with State agricultural colleges in Ohio, Iowa, Washington, Kansas, Alabama, Colorado and Pennsylvania. A second New York State vet erinary college was established at New York University in 1913.
The American Veterinary Medical Associa tion in 1891 adopted an article providing that all applicants for membership should be gradu ates of a recognized veterinary school with a curriculum of at least three years of six months each and a corps of instructors com prising at least four veterinarians. Nearly all the schools which had not already done so soon placed themselves in harmony with these re quirements. The next step in advance came in 1895 when the New York legislature enacted that at least a high school diploma represent ing four years of high school work should be offered for admission to a veterinary school, that the veterinary curriculum should embrace three full years of nine months each, and that only those who had met both requirements could be admitted to the regents' veterinary ex amination for license to practice in the State. Veterinary colleges now require that a ma triculant must be a graduate of an accredited high school having a four-year course of study. The American Veterinary Medical Association now requires that all applicants for membership must be graduates of a recognized veterinary school with a curriculum of four years of nine months each.