Excerpt from Veterinary Blue Book, 1898

The Veterinary Blue Book is the product of the necessity which certain veterinarians felt they required to establish their profession upon a more definite basis than had existed a few years ago.

When legislation undertook the regulation of the practice of veterinary medicine in New York State, the only organized body of veterinarians in it was the State Society, to which only two or three practitioners in New York City belonged. Throughout the State men of all classes assumed any veterinary title which they saw fit, and when the law commanded the first registration of veterinarians, Patrick X O'Grady and an educated graduate from a four-years' course in a German university were peers in its eyes. The practice of veterinary medicine was equally deplorable. Many graduates and non-graduates competed in augmenting their trade by the sale of quack medicines. By familiar association with coachmen and grooms, and liberal division with them of the money changed the horse-owner, veterinary practices were supposed to be built up.

But this low standing of a portion of the veterinary profession is not to be attributed to any natural connection of dishonest methods with the calling. The ignorance and want of interest in his stable of the average American horse-owner is the origin of the lax methods exercised in connection with the horse in this country. When an owner knows nothing about horses, and allows his equipage to be run for him by whatever employe is styled his coachman, with power to buy horses, have them shod, clipped, fed and attended to by whoever gives the largest commission for the privilege of rendering the bills, it is not surprising that unscrupulous individuals rank as popular in many stables.

The statute requiring the registration of all veterinary practitioners made all such "qualified" in the law, but it brought before those members of the profession interested in its advancement the need of a further classification, and the requirement of an organized body to see that the law was properly executed.

In 1893 a meeting was called of the veterinary practitioners in New York City, and all who were desirous of placing the practice of veterinary medicine upon the basis of a profession and conducting it, as it should be, by reputable methods, were invited to join, from this meeting was formed the Veterinary Medical Association of New York County.

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