Journal
Opinion April 2, 2025
I have often
been asked how I get my column ideas. This month’s one came to mind as PBS
featured the latest chapters in the James Herriot series “All Creatures Great
and Small.” We have also been making frequent visits to our local veterinary
office as we put down our elderly poodle and acquired a rescue dog from Louisiana.
With those
prompts in mind, I fashioned a column on veterinarians using online sources as
well as recollections from many local residents.
Before the
mid-19th century, the care of animals was left mostly to their owners. By 1851,
there was at least one book on animal care for farmers was on sale in Bradford.
In the later
1800s, those who did offered their services for the care of large animals had
little, if any formally educated, gaining their knowledge from hands-on
experience. Farriers or horse doctors dealt with horses while people known as “cow
leeches” dealt with cows and other large farm animals.
While they
tended to the needs of large animals, those who referred to themselves as
veterinary surgeons also carried on several other businesses at the same time.
Charles H.
C. Williams began his local practice in the period after the Civil War. In
1868, he warned that Morgan horses were being harmed by poor breeding
practices. He traveled the state “exhibiting his trained horse and dogs, and
selling his patented bit.”
In 1872,
Prof. Williams was in Bradford. There he received “colts and horse of vicious
habits at his stable for breaking and training.” He later opened a confectionery store and
billiard room and offered a minstrel and burlesque combination at the town
hall. He then moved to Franklin NH.
Notices that
surgeon veterinary Dr. Frank Lamb was making farm visits to care for sick
animals began to appear in 1876. Lamb was born in Ryegate in 1858. ”His early
ambitions were to study medicine, but sickness prevented his completing his
studies.”
He practiced
in East Orange and Topsham before he relocated to Bradford. During his time in
Bradford, he was a constable, village trustee, and legislator. He also
advertised as a carpenter and re-tinner of cookware.
When he died
in June 1922, his obituary included the following: Lamb “will be greatly missed
in the many homes in the surrounding towns where his profession as veterinary
has taken him.”
Formal
veterinary schools were first established in the 1850s in Philadelphia, Boston,
and New York. Their major focus was the care of urban working horses.
These
private, proprietary institutions were all closed by 1927. Between 1879 and
1959, 18 new schools were created, and between 1973 and 1998, 10 more
veterinary schools opened.
Veterinary
historians assert that the original James Herriot books “created such a
phenomenal interest in veterinary medicine with his books that state
legislatures were forced to build veterinary schools so their constituents
could obtain a veterinary education.”
Currently, most
accredited veterinary schools are located at public institutions such as
Cornell or the University of Pennsylvania. New England’s only accredited school
is at Tufts University.
Universities
and community college systems in New
Hampshire and Vermont offer pre-veterinary and veterinary technology
programs.
I talked
with Dr. Milton Robison of Swanton, who, at 90, is the oldest registered
veterinarian In Vermont. In response to my question about historical changes in
his practice since he began in 1965, Dr. Robison lamented the state-wide
decline in large animal practitioners due to the loss of the state’s dairy
farms.
He
understands the advantage that today’s veterinarians have in treating small
animals brought to their offices rather than traveling to individual farms for
larger patients.
What follows
are the stories of three local veterinarians who practiced for decades.
Examining the lives of these individuals is not meant to ignore the
contributions of the other local vets. Rather, it is meant to use their
examples to focus on the work of all local vets meeting our animals’ needs.
Dr. Edwin
Powers was born in Bethlehem, NH in 1913, graduated from Bradford Academy in
1931 and the University of Toronto School of Veterinary Medicine in 1935.
He moved to
Fairlee to begin 16 years of practice there. In 1952, Powers moved his family
and practice to Bradford, where he remained until 1964. He had an operating
room and kennels for patients and boarded animals at both locations. During
these years, he mentored a number of young assistants.
His daughter
Janice Fournier recalled her father being called out day or night, good weather
and bad. Mud season was always a special challenge. He made it part of his
duties to keep farmers aware of diseases such as tuberculosis and brucellosis
that affected local herds.
In addition
to his work with local farmers, Powers was active in local affairs. In 1954, he
was a major advocate for expanding vocational agriculture at Bradford Academy
by building of a new shop and classroom.
Beginning in
1949, he was the official veterinarian of the Connecticut Valley Exposition,
the forerunner of today’s Bradford Fair. In 1963, he presided over a rabies clinic for 650 dogs
at the Bradford Armory.
Powers was a
great supporter of the Academy’s alumni association and the school’s athletic
teams. He rarely missed a BA basketball
game, where he frequently offered unsolicited advice to officials. He was often called upon to act as
toastmaster for local banquets for both alumni and athletics.
His
influence reached beyond the local level in his work with the Vermont
Veterinary Medical Association, where he served as president for two
terms. Dr. Robison commented that Powers
was one of the major organizers of that organization.
In 1964,
Powers was appointed by the governor to the Veterinary Examination and
Registration Board.
In 1965,
when the physical demands of his practice began to affect his health, Powers
accepted a federal appointment with the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service in Montpelier.
He retired
in 1979, but continued to maintain an active interest in veterinary
affairs. Fournier told me that a Lake
Morey Inn event celebrating his 80th birthday attracted more than 200
celebrants. “Very impressive and touching, was witnessing thanks from folks for
veterinary work done decades earlier!” Powers passed away in Montpelier in
1994.
Dr. Edwin
Blaisdell was born in Laconia in 1927. He graduated from the UNH pre-veterinary
course in 1949 and from Cornell in 1952.
It was at UNH that he met Katherine Frizell
and they were married in 1949. She had a PH.D in veterinary parasitology and
physiology, and after they settled in North Haverhill, they began a lifetime of
working as a team.
Blasdell
“brought many innovative vet practices to the area which greatly enhanced the
dairy and cattle farm industry.” He
dealt with epidemics, endemic diseases, and injuries and set up local rabies
clinics.
He was “not
your ordinary veterinarian.” His daughter, Dorothy Custance of Belmont, NH,
recalled that their “family suppers rotated around barn calls.”
She said
there were no animal shelters at the time and her father could not stand to put
down a healthy animal, so, they sometimes had as many as 20 pets.
Custance
said that her father loved the James Herriot series Identifying with the tales
of the rural British veterinarian. The Blaisdells also connected with
veterinarians from other countries and sometimes flew to foreign places to work
with them.
Others share
memories of taking their pets to “Doc” Blaisdell and his willingness to treat
them at any hour. Sometimes it was for an injury or illness, and other times,
it was for a face filled with quills.
In addition
to household or farm animals, Blaisdell’s practice included caring for the
animals at Natureland in North Woodstock and the exotic species at Green’s Rare
Bird and Animal Farm in Orford and Fairlee. There he treated emus, elephants,
cheetahs, snakes, and more.
In 2007,
Blasdell was presented the Andrew Felker Award for service to the promotion of
agriculture. He retired from practice in 2008 after 56 years of “compassionate
care of all creatures great and small.”
Blasdell’s
interest beyond animal care had a significant influence on the community. In
1958, he helped raise funds for the new Cottage Hospital and later worked with
the Haverhill Historical Society in the reconstruction of the Bedell Bridge and
Ladd Street School.
When Katherine
began writing a column on local history for the Journal Opinion she often
included stories Ed brought home from his veterinary practice. This column
expanded in a series of nine books on local and regional history.
He was a
collector of antiquities and readily shared his collections with schools, local
societies, and the North Haverhill Fair.
He was president of the fair when it first began as the Pink Granite
Grange Fair. In 2007, the fair dedicated the Ed Blaisdell Maple Museum, to
which he donated his maple collection.
He was also
on the precinct commission for the North Haverhill Fire Department and active
in the local grange. Both Edwin and Katharine passed away in 2015.
Dr. Walter Cottrell grew up in Maryland,
served in the Marines, and entered
veterinarian medicine later in life than most.
He graduated from Cornell at age 38.
In 1985, he
joined Dr. David Webster’s Bradford practice at the Oxbow Veterinary Clinic. In
1993, he opened the River Valley Veterinary Hospital in a remodeled farm house
in Newbury.
In a letter
to me, a local resident related an experience when her son’s family dog was
brought to Cottrell for a scratched eye. “Dr. Cottrell had a reassuring ‘bedside
manner,’ and was truly sensitive to a child’s anxieties about a beloved pet. “
Another
story involved an aspiring nursing student with a dog with challenging health
issues. “Having virtually no money, Dr. Cottrell took both my dog and myself
under his wing and promptly and properly diagnosed by beloved dog Chili.” This
care included using his influence to get additional care for the dog at Tufts.
“A true gentleman in every sense of the word.”
Still
further, Walt is “a first-rate clinician” with a “warm capacious heart.”
in 2004, he sold the Newbury practice and
relocated to Pennsylvania to be closer to grandchildren. There he became a
wildlife vet for the state of Pennsylvania. His practice had grown from a
handful of species to one treating over 450.
Upon retirement in 2013, he returned to
Vermont. He expanded his role as a wildlife vet for the Northeast Wildlife
Disease Cooperative, serving nine states from Delaware to Maine until 2019.
Today, he
describes his practice as sporadic. Other than working with the Kilham Bear
Center in Lyme, his attention is often focused on the raising of English
setters and heritage apples.
In a recent conversation, Cottrell discussed
changes in veterinary practices. At the same time that generalists who worked
with both large and small animals vanished locally, significant changes
occurred in how veterinarians organized their practices.
After 1980,
as more women were accepted as veterinarians, there was an increased pressure
to balance work with family needs. By 2009, women outnumbered men in the field.
Additionally, the expanding research and new developments in animal care led to
specialization among practitioners.
There was a
rise in emergency care facilities, replacing vets who were available day and
night. At first, emergency coverage was shared by co-operating practices. Then
they become stand-alone facilities and had to charge higher rates.
In the
mid-1990s, the organized profession began to respond to the discrepancy of
income between veterinarians and other medical professionals. Cottrell referred
to this response as the adoption of a “white coat syndrome.” Realizing that
young vets had higher debts to service and lives to lead, there was an
organized effort to increase individual income and time off.
James
Harriot wrote, “If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon… you will have a
life of endless interest and variety.”
That certainly seems to sum up the careers of Drs Powers, Blaisdell and
Cottrell. Over the years that has meant so much to local owners of “creatures
great and small.”
