324 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



A VETERAN EDUCATOR IN VETERINARY MEDICINE 



127. Paralleling Dr. James Law (122) in the pioneer nature 

 of his service in the field of veterinary education was Dr. H. J. 

 Detmers, founder of the College of Veterinary Medicine of the 

 Ohio State University. Dr. Detmers was of German nativity, 

 having been born in the province of Oldenburg, in April, 1835. 

 His education was received in the leading universities of Europe, 

 both at Hanover and Berlin, where he pursued agricultural and 

 veterinary courses. In the late sixties he came to America and 

 at once became a naturalized citizen. 



His first duties of an ofBcial nature in America were in con- 

 nection with the Commissioner of Agriculture of the United 

 States (the forerunner of the present federal Department of Agri- 

 culture), with whom he studied the causes of the then recently 

 introduced cattle plague, contagious pleuro-pneumonia. In coop- 

 eration with Dr. Law, Dr. Billings and Dr. Salmon (33) means 

 for its eradication were proposed and successfully executed. 



When the new Bureau of Animal Industry was formed under 

 the control of Dr. Salmon, Dr. Detmers was retained as an 

 investigator of hog cholera and other infectious animal diseases. 

 At that time the science of bacteriology was in its infancy, and 

 Dr. Detmers attracted wide attention through his use of this 

 science to attack the cause of hog cholera. His work in this 

 particular direction still stands as classic. Dr. Detmers suc- 

 ceeded in isolating and cultivating an organism in beef broth 

 which he believed to be the cause of hog cholera, or as he called 

 it, swine plague. At the time that he was doing this Dr. Salmon 

 (33) isolated another organism which he believed to be the cause 

 of cholera and for many years there existed a strong rivalry 

 between the two scientists for the honor of prior discovery of the 

 organism. As a result two distinct swine diseases were popu- 

 larly recognized for a long time under the respective names of 

 swine plague an-d hog cholera, but Dr. Detmers was never willing 



