314 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 
PIONEER OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION 
122. One of the youngest professions auxiliary to the livestock 
industry is that of veterinary medicine. For centuries, the horse 
doctor and the quack who gained their living either by practical 
experience or through the credulity of the earlier husbandmen, 
have existed but the organization of knowledge on this subject 
and its dignification as a profession have been matters of the 
last third of a century. Foremost among the apostles of this 
movement is Dr. James Law of Cornell University. 
Dr. Law was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, February 12, 1838. 
He was educated in the Edinburgh public schools, and later 
graduated from the veterinary medical schools located there, 
taking his final degree from the University College of Surgeons. 
Not content with the information he was able to gain here, he 
proceeded to France, and took further work in the Ecole Veteri- 
naire at Alfort near Paris, and at the Ecole Veterinaire at Lyons. 
In 1857 he received his degree of V.S. from the Highland and 
Agricultural Society, and was made a member of the Royal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1863, receiving his Fellowship 
in 1870. From 1860 to 1865 he was professor of Anatomy and 
Materia Medica at the Edinburgh New Veterinary College. The 
following two years he was professor at the Albert Veterinary 
College in London, but in 1868 was called by the late Hon. 
Andrew D. White to Cornell University at Ithaca, New York, 
as Professor of Veterinary Science. In 1896 he was made Direc- 
tor and Dean, and in 1908 received the title of Professor Emeri- 
tus. During the years of his professorship at Cornell he was 
Veterinarian to the New York State Agricultural Society. From 
1882 to 1883 he was chairman of the United States Treasury 
Cattle Commission and selected the sites for the quarantine deten- 
tion station. In 1887-8 he was in charge of the field work of 
the Bureau of Animal Industry for the extinction of the cattle 
lung plague in the states of Illinois and New York. He was 
