History

The Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) is an institution that represents more than 87 years of growth from a small school of veterinary medicine in 1916 to its present role as a major veterinary educational, medical and research center. Through years of maturation and expansion, an institution emerged that has proudly produced some of the nation's best practicing veterinarians and continues to lead the nation in innovative approaches to veterinary medical education.

The first attempt to teach veterinary science at the Agricultural & Mechanical College (as Texas A&M University was called) was made in the third session of the college in 1878-79 when the college surgeon, D. Port Smythe, M.D., was also listed on the faculty as professor of anatomy, physiology and hygiene. No course is described, however, and no further record is available to indicate that such a course was actually given. It is assumed that the proposed lectures would concern our domestic animals, for this thought is clearly expressed in the catalog of the fourth session. In April 1888, the college received a state appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars for equipping and operating its Department of Veterinary Science, and on June 6, 1888, Dr. Mark Francis received his formal appointment to the faculty. This marked the real beginning of professional veterinary medicine in Texas; Francis was the first trained veterinarian at the college and was destined to become one of the most distinguished men in United States veterinary medicine.

Francis recalled:

It was the latter part of July or the first of August when I arrived at College Station. The college work at first was merely some classroom lectures to the agricultural students. There were no laboratories or equipment for this work. We had a room about 14 x 16 feet that was on the ground floor of the Main Building (destroyed by fire in May 1912) that served as office, classroom and laboratory. At the end of the school year-June 1889-the adjoining room became vacant and was assigned to us as a classroom. In this unsuitable place we toiled for 15 years. There was no hospital. Along about December 1888 a frame barn was built to serve this purpose. It was about 20 x 36 feet and was near where the Agriculture Building now stands .... The following year a frame building was provided that served as a dissecting room.

It was Mark Francis, working under these conditions, who helped prove that the tick was the culprit causing Texas cattle fever. He developed effective inoculations for the fever that had plagued Southern livestock since the late 1700s.

Veterinary science was now on the move in Texas, and the demand for veterinary services from the college was increasing. This soon brought about another expansion of facilities for the department in the creation of a veterinary hospital building in 1908. In 1916 the School of Veterinary Medicine was established with a complement of instructors and, two years later, a new building, Francis Hall, was built. The new school opened its doors in September 1916 with 13 students. At last it was possible to earn a degree in veterinary medicine in Texas.

Texas veterinarians, along with the rest of the nation, essentially made the transition from the horse and buggy to the automobile age within the same short span of years that encompassed the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, and the armistice in 1918. Perhaps there was some symbolism in the meeting when Professor David W. Williams, who was driving Mark Francis to an archeological outing near the A&M College, passed a horse and buggy driven by one of Francis' students. Francis hailed the driver, had Williams pull over, and proceeded to inspect the horse (which he had recently treated) and check its temperature (never orally), oblivious to the fact that the student was accompanied by "a young lady, all done up in organdy, ribbons, and the Lord only knows how much embarrassment." One would have thought that the automobile, cities and paved highways would have diminished greatly the demand for trained veterinarians. Paradoxically, the new urban-industrial society stimulated the demand for veterinarians.

The practice adjacent to urban areas changed from large to predominantly small animal practice and, particularly within the small animal field of veterinary medicine, specialization began to develop. One of the most dramatic changes of the postwar era had to do with the entry of women into a field almost exclusively consisting of male practitioners before World War II. Not only did women begin to enter into veterinary medical practice in Texas after World War II, but by the close of the 1980s women were well on the way to comprising a majority of practitioners. Women were admitted to Texas A&M University on a limited basis beginning in 1963 and did not gain unrestricted admission until 1971. Following in the footsteps of Dr. Sonja Oliphant Lee, the first woman graduate (1966) of the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, women now represent over 60 percent of today's enrollment.

Veterinary medicine is in a constant state of change as it adapts to the needs of a changing society and as it is enhanced by the emerging technologies of science and medicine. The role of the profession in modern society is being extended. Veterinary medicine is critical in livestock production, food hygiene, human and animal disease control and eradication, public health, laboratory animal medicine, and even in the space program.

Small or companion animal medicine comprises a larger than ever proportion of veterinary practice. Likewise, exotic animal medicine and zoological medicine claim an increasing segment of the veterinary professional staff. Huddling on the horizon are a variety of activities and fields in which veterinary medicine will have contributions. Mental health, biomedical research, environmental health issues, wildlife resources and wildlife biology are areas that increasingly require the expertise of veterinary medical doctors and technologists. Veterinary health care providers of the future may specialize in business management, food science, public health, pathology, epidemiology, toxicology, biochemistry, microbiology, animal and poultry science and bioengineering under the general mantle of veterinary medicine.

Enticing areas of future opportunity for Texas veterinarians and CVM faculty and staff are in animal sports medicine and wildlife medicine. With pari-mutuel betting legalized in the Texas, horse and dog racing are bringing new opportunities to veterinary medicine. Expensive racehorses, breeding programs, and the management of tracks and animals will require equine and canine specialists of high caliber and skill. Texas also has one of the nation's largest wildlife reserves and most active exotic animal farming industries. Clinical veterinarians, veterinary medical scientists and dedicated technologists and staff personnel throughout the college support this rapidly growing industry.

The story of veterinary medicine in Texas and within the College of Veterinary Medicine is a microcosm of a very ancient bond among animals and people, but there are some distinctive aspects of veterinary medicine in Texas. For most of its history, Texas has been intensely rural and agricultural. Its cattle and other livestock industries helped stimulate the advent of modern veterinary medicine. Its extensive international border with Mexico has created special situations in veterinary medicine and public health, and a significant number of CVM faculty collaborate with the Mexican government, Mexican veterinary educational institutions, and Mexican veterinarians. The military history of Texas and its influences have directly affected the national and even international development of veterinary medicine and public health. Texas has only recently become one of the most urban and populous of states, and its per capita ownership of pets and animals of every kind is among the highest in the nation.

The College of Veterinary Medicine, in partnership with the people of Texas and veterinary medicine in Texas, provides a particularly vital example of the bond among people and animals and of the special doctors, technologists and many other staff personnel who work in the center of this very special relationship.

1888
Texas Agricultural Extension Station established as a division of Texas A. and M. College under the provisions of the Hatch Act.

1902
Erection of the Chemistry and Veterinary Building.

1903
First Veterinary Association in Texas Organized at Fort Worth. Dr. Mark Francis was elected president.

1908
Veterinary Hospital Constructed.

1916
School of Veterinary Medicine established. Dr. Mark Francis was appointed the first Dean.

1920
First grads (4) to receive DVM degrees from Texas A&M.

1929
Texas A&M Student Chapter of the American Veterinary Medical Association organized.

1937
Dr. R.P. Marsteller appointed Dean.

1941
Enrollment limited to 100 new students each year.

1947
Dr. R.C. Dunn appointed Dean.

1949
Veterinary Library Opened.

1953
Dr. W.W. Armistead appointed Dean.

1953
Erection of Veterinary Medical Hospital.

1955
Erection of Veterinary Sciences Building.

1957
Dr. Alvin A. Price appointed Dean.

1963
The designation College of Veterinary Medicine replaces former designation of School of Veterinary Medicine.

1963
First woman admitted to the professional program.

1966
First woman receives DVM degree from Texas A&M.

1967
The Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory is established.

1973
Dr. George C. Shelton appointed Dean.

1990
Dr. John Shadduck appointed Dean.

1993
The Veterinary Research Building and new Large Animal Clinic are erected.

1997
Dr. Robert F. Playter, Jr. appointed as Interim Dean.

1998
Dr. H. Richard Adams appointed Dean.