VETERINARY PRACTICE ON THE RANGES OF TEXAS.* 
By James Harrison, Kalamazoo, Mich. 
While the fundamental principle of the practice of veterinary 
medicine throughout the universe may be the same, yet its mode 
of application is vastly different in different countries and dif¬ 
ferent states. 
I found on going to Texas that the practice of veterinary 
medicine and surgery on the ranges of that state and New Mex¬ 
ico, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma, was quite different to 
what it is here (as I was located in the northwestern corner of 
Texas, and consequently a corner of each of the other states 
came within what might be termed my legitimate territory), 
although a veterinarian’s territory extends in that part of the 
country to wherever he is called, and that may be from his own 
office a hundred miles distant or even more. Twenty-five, thirty- 
five or even fifty-mile trips are of very common occurrence. 
These trips are usually by rail or automobile, though in the 
former case you would be met at the station and driven out five, 
ten or fifteen miles or whatever distance it was, and it became 
necessary for you to stay there a day or two sometimes until 
your patient showed some symptoms of improvement or other¬ 
wise. You can readily see that you would have to carry a small¬ 
sized drug store along with you if you expected to get favorable 
results, and very frequently the disease Would have such a start 
that it would prove fatal anyway. However, I was usually pre¬ 
pared for any emergency, as I always had m pockets full of 
alkaloids of the Abbott Alkaloidal or P. D. variety, and my trusty 
hypodermic was never absent from my pocket except when in 
active service. Then, again, when you went to one ranch there 
was usually something to do on the next ranch, which might be 
five or ten miles distant. There would be some dental work, 
some castrating, frequently ridglings which the cowboy or 
* Read before the Mich Vet. Med. Ass’n, Feb., 1912 
192 
