Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-03-10
AN ANIMAL PHILANTHROPY

Special to the Register.
BOSTON, March 9.-Among the
many forms of modern philanthropy
there is hardly another so striking as
a free hospital clinic for the dumb
animals of the poor,-a philanthropy
which, like free treatment for human
beings, is intended, also, to give neces-
| sary practice TO the students OF an i'm
portant branch of human knowledge.
Such a department Is one OF the rec
ognized features of all established hos
pitfalls. and is quite as natural and i'm
portant a part of the Harvard Vet
Urinary Hospital in this city, an insti-
tuition which was the first of its kind
to be established in the country, and
favorably in number OF cases
treated with its London prototype, al
though the latter is SO much older.
The hospital is itself a part of the
Harvard School of Veterinary Medicine
which, it is feared, is soon to close it's
doors, despite the fact that 1t is just
completing a most successful season.
It is now certain that the University,
handicapped by the restriction OF funds
to special purposes, will be unable
longer to support this important de-
partment of it's work. This circum-
stance has already compelled the free
clinic to remove to less convenient
quarters, and to make a small charge
for medicines. Unless endowed by
some persons of means,-interested,
philantropically, in dumb animals or,
more practically, in the scientific val
- 80 49, -r,o,l- J1~o NV c,Yoh M incfi-
tuition in the interests OF comparative
medicine, or in its economic value as
regards the character and treatment OF
the animal epidemics which now and
then overspread the country,-school,
hospital and free clinic, must soon
cease to exist.
There is a belief in many minds that
dumb animals and medicine cannot ex-
list together except for purposes of vivi-
section-a belief that continues in spite
of the fact that Veterinary Hospitals
now exist in all the civilized countries
of the world, and that the dignity of an
imal medicine and the dignity OF ami
NAL patients have received universal
scientific recognition; and it is a curions
fact also that the Anglo-Soxon ract was
the last to recognize the dignity OF ami
NAL medicine. The government of Louis
XIV in France founded the first school
of veterinary medicine in Europe: SINH
lar schools were soon after organized
under government patronage in Austria,
Prussia, and other European countries,
and, about the year 1892, the Veterinary
College of London" was founded as a
private venture; this was the beginning
Of the present Royal College of Veteri-
nary Surgeons, as well as Of the two now
for many years established in the city of
Edinburgh. In 1882 Harvard University
organized the first American school upon
the basis of those already existing
abroad, a school of which the Veterinary
Hospital and it's free cline for dumb ami
mails is an important part; and this &C.
ton has been since followed by the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania and by Carnell
University. Counting these and the
smaller institutions that have sprung
from them there are now some IA
American schools of veterinary medi-
cine. Among them, however, there
are but two free clinics,-of which that
of the Harvard Hospital is the larger.
The Harvard Hospital has the dis
tinction of being the first Of its kind,
and is probably equally known to the
owners of valuable animals throughout
New England and to the poorer classes
Of Boston, whose affection for their
pets is none the less great because
they have a smaller monetary value.
In the nature of things the two classes
represent separately the two working
aspects of the institution; for tfe hos
pital proper has not only paid it's own
way during the eighteen years of it's
existence, but has materially reduced
the debt incurred in founding the
School, and would, if the School had
been endowed and the Hospital left
free to accumulate it's earnings, have a
present surplus of between $4,000 and
$4,000, while the free clinic in which
there is no charge except a few cents
for medicines, had in it's latest tabu-
lated statistics, covering the period
from August l to November % of the
present hospital year, 1923 cases, a rec
ord that promises a gain of 1000 over
the 1866 cases treated during the year
previous. These figures compare fav-
orably with those of any such clinic
in the world.
The free clinic is exactly comparable
to a free clinic OF ~out-patientS at any
hospital, and will be sadly missed by a
class in the community that can hardly
afford the services of trained veterin-
arians. The student-doctors are young
men taking a three years course in
veterinary medicine, at the end of
which time they are expected to be
able to recognize and prevent disease,
not only in a single patient but such
as is epizootic. affecting large numbers,
and in many cases communicable to
man; to be expert in animal conditions
as affecting the use of animals for food;
and to be thoroughly conversant with
the scientific relation between the study
of mar and animals-a course of train
ing sufficiently different from that
which produced the old-school horse
doctor. The cases are brought to the
Hospital as in an ordinary out-patient
Clinic. accompanied by friends, if not
by relatives, and the most common
cases are, of course, those of the small
er domestic creatures. In the days
when monkeys were more commonly
seen with ~hand-organs in Boston the
tendency of these animals to consump-
ton and the poverty of their owners
brought many of them to the clinic,
while in the hospital wards there have
been not only the domestic animals.
/ u,,& 1s@~- %trA-1 49, N.l Il -.