History of Veterinary Medicine in Pennsylvania - Development of The Profession

Development of The Profession

By the mid 1800s, Philadelphia and other large cities of Pennsylvania had veterinarians who were scientists and practiced medicine based on the knowledge available from wizards in that area. But the vast majority of practitioners throughout the valleys of the state were inexpert and uneducated. It was decades before trained people filtered in. it would take close to a century for the graduate veterinarians to live down some of the unprofessional habits of their predecessors. It can only be said that a few were self-educated and experienced. It has been written that the armies of Europe were aware of the value of veterinary care as early as the 3rd century, but it took the United States Army until the Civil War to reach that conclusion. It was not until 1835 that the word “veterinarian” even appeared in an Army Regulation. That regulation required inspectors to see that “veterinarians perform their duties.” It took more than one hundred year after the formation of the first Regiment of Light Dragoons to really identify a “blacksmith” and a “Ferrier”. The blacksmith was held in such little regard by the Continental Congress that the Congress would not allows civilians hired by the Quartermaster to have their horses shod at government expense. “A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.”- Benjamin Franklin, 1757.

Horses continued to play a greater role in the U.S. Army. Finally, one hundred and three years after the first regiment of dragoons, the following paragraph appeared in General Orders Number 36, 1879: “Hereafter appointments as veterinary surgeons will be confined to the graduates of established and reputable veterinary medicine schools and colleges.”

A charter was obtained from the Pennsylvania Legislature for the Veterinary College of Philadelphia. This was the first charter of its kind issued in the United States, but the school never graduated a student and subsequently lost any claim to being the first veterinary school. That honor has been singularly given to the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons, chartered in 1857 at New York University. The non-graduates were highly independent and unorganized, but the graduate veterinarians had the advantage of unity of purpose. Their leaders from Philadelphia and New York has met in 1863 to organize the United States Veterinary Medical Association. A few graduates in the Philadelphia area formed the Keystone Veterinary Medical Association, the first organized veterinary group in Pennsylvania, in 1882. Later, on August 22, 1883 a group of veterinarians joined to form the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association. Twenty two veterinarians assembled to hear about the continuing education and legislative activities of veterinary conventions in other states and to consider formation of an association to conduct similar work in Pennsylvania. This was not the first time that Pennsylvania veterinarians had tried to organize. The very first veterinary association was launched in Philadelphia on May 7, 1854, by Robert Jennings. Perhaps the most successful of the PVMA’s educational programs is the Mid-Atlantic States Veterinary Clinic, a one day session of “wet” demonstrations, started in York, Pennsylvania, in 1962. Alternating annually between the York Interstate Fair Grounds in Timonium, where the clinic is sponsored by the Maryland Veterinary Medical Association, the program attracts more than 400 practitioners from at least seven states.

The need for a Veterinary college in Pennsylvania was another of the issues taken up by the PVMA in its first year of existence. There were only about three hundred graduate veterinarians in the United States 1883. The importance of strong local, state and national veterinary associations was emphasized by Dr. Hoskins in a paper presented at the keystone meeting on October 11, 1892:

“The many sudden and broad changes that have characterized the doings in the world of veterinary science during the past year seem to demand at our hands stronger consideration, stronger work. It affords us an incentive that will bring to us the end of our work a rich return, when we have properly considered and disposed of the great questions that are knocking at our doors for aid in their final dispositions. It also points strongly to the need of stronger veterinary organizations. The national one must soon tend in directions and lines that will lift it entirely from the consideration of those topics which are more or less local in character…”

The keystone has the distinction of being the first veterinary association in the country to urge “a single standard of examinations in veterinary medicine.” A national board was established but it was 1955 before a standard national examination was offered. The national board of veterinary medical examiners was organized by the AVMA in 1950 with its primary objective to “elevate the standard of qualification necessary to practice by means of a comprehensive examination to be made available to licensing boards in the various states.”