Alexandre François Liautard

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Alexandre François Augustin Liautard (February 15, 1835, Paris – April 20, 1918, Bois-Jérôme-Saint-Ouen, Eure, France) was a French veterinarian. After graduating from the École nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse in 1856, he emigrated to the United States in 1859 to exercise his profession of veterinary practitioner in New York until 1900, when he retired and returned to France. The name of Alexandre Liautard is associated with the beginning of private veterinary education in America. Liautard was the founder and dean of the New York American Veterinary College. He participated in organizing the American Veterinary profession and founded the United States Veterinary Medical Association, now the American Veterinary Medical Association, of which he was for many years a driving force. His name is still cited in the American veterinary press as a dominant figure in the history of the profession for having defined its professional standards and missions, and been a uniting force, and as founder of the American Veterinary Review, now the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA). Alexandre Liautard is honored today, as he was during his lifetime, as the "father of the American veterinary profession".

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Biography Alexandre François Augustin Liautard was born on 15 February 1835 at 33 rue Neuve-Saint- Augustin, now rue Saint-Augustin, in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris. He was the son of Jean-François Liautard, a locksmith contractor, and Charlotte Gabrielle Héloïse Vives, born in Paris, and who died in 1841 when Alexandre Liautard was only five years old. He had two sisters. His maternal uncle Étienne Gabriel Vives was a veterinarian in the military profession.

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Veterinary studies In 1851, Alexandre Liautard was accepted as pupil at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort. In 1855, his father died and, five days later, Alexandre was expelled from Alfort « for a very serious breach of discipline » the subject of which is unknown. In addition, he had been unable to take the exams at the end of the first semester, due to illness. After halting his studies for several months he was admitted to the École nationale vétérinaire de Toulouse where he finished his fourth year and obtained his diploma in 1856.

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Veterinary practitioner in New-York His activities between 1856 and 1859 remain unknown. His award certificate for the Legion of Honor mentions three years of military service, and although this was initially quoted by Lester Crawford an investigation carried out at the Service historique de l'armée de terre (Army history department) in France did not find any mention of his name. In addition, the military service period was six years at that time, and in accordance with the Gouvion-Saint-Cyr law, admission was by recruitment or by random draw. It is therefore most likely that Liautard drew a "good number" and was not recruited. He arrived at New York in 1859 where he settled and quickly opened a veterinary clinic. The city was in full expansion at that time, despite the Civil War which began in 1861. Developments were not only economic but also occurring at the university level. Fifteen universities were created during this wartime period, including Cornell, Swarthmore College, and MIT. Minds were also open to the creation of professional colleges. At the beginning of Liautard's career in New York, very few American veterinarians possessed diplomas and all those who did had received veterinary training in Europe. Many "horse doctors"…Citește mai mult

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Family life and return to France In New York, Alexandre Lieutard married Emily Joséphine Stouvenel the daughter of French immigrants to New-York. Their only daughter, Marie-Louise was born in 1864 in New York where she was brought up. In 1890, she married Octave Boyer who had come to New York to set up a branch of the Grande Maison de Blanc, a luxury Brussels store in Opéra district of Paris. The New York store on Fifth avenue was closed down in the 1960s. In 1900, when Octave Boyer was made director of the Grande Maison de Blanc, boulevard des Capucines, in Paris, Alexandre Liautard retired and returned to France with his wife, then reliant on a wheelchair due to cerebral infarction, and with his daughter and son-in-law. It seems that Liautard was too attached to his daughter to let her leave without him. They lived in a vast apartment on the fourth floor of a luxury building at 14, avenue de l'Opéra. Although no longer a practitioner, Liautard continued to develop numerous activities. As honorary dean of New York American Veterinary College, he kept up extensive correspondence from France with his American colleagues and continued to write editorials for his…Citește mai mult

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Work and achievements Although Alexandre Liautard remains little known in France, he is famous and recognized by the veterinary world of the United States as a dominant figure in the history of the American veterinary profession. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), in 2013, an article in the association's journal, the JAVMA, dated January 1, 2013, described him as one of the 12 most famous figures in the history of the American veterinary profession and, during that year, devoted the first of the twelve biographies of founders published by the journal, to him: Dr Alexandre Francois Liautard, the father of the American veterinary profession, almost single-handedly transformed the uneducated, disorganized veterinarians of the United States into a learned profession. He founded two veterinary schools that served as the blueprints for veterinary education as it exists today. He also helped establish the AVMA and was the first editor of its Journal. "Entrepreneur" of veterinary education, founder and dean of the veterinary school In the United States (as in Great Britain but unlike France), the first veterinary schools were private enterprises. Like the universities to which they are attached, many still are today. The…Citește mai mult

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The American Veterinary College In April 1875, two months after the closure of the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons, the American Veterinary College opened as a private establishment under the direction of Liautard, in a new building that he had purchased at 141 West 54th Street. Both the college and veterinary clinic were owned by Liautard who taught and had a practice there until his retirement and return to France in 1900. The college rapidly became very famous, mainly due to the personal genius of Liautard on all fronts, not only as a teacher and reputed clinician, but also as manager and remarkable organizer of a professional network of former pupils he had trained, and with whom he corresponded and supported through his journal, the American Veterinary Review.

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In April 1887, Liautard wrote: Twenty years ago, an American veterinary profession did not exist; today, its national successful representatives are, in the main, alumni of the American Veterinary College. The evidence of the work accomplished by the college in the past twenty years is shown by the fact that out of than not more 600 veterinary surgeons qualified to practice, and holding diplomas as such, who are today practicing veterinary medicine in the United States, the American Veterinary college has contributed 236 or more than one-third. As to the efficiency of the American Veterinary College, it may be stated that out of 236 alumni, fifty of them have been or are now occupying Government or State positions or filling professorships in agricultural or veterinary institutions. The clinical activities of the Hospital Department of the American Veterinary College were published annually; in 1887 he summarized the 12 previous years as follows : The Hospital Department of the College has within the past 12 years treated 26,800 sick animals, horses or dogs, and over 8,800 operations have been performed. Free clinics have been held since 1875 to afford the poor, who cannot remunerate the services of a veterinary surgeon, an opportunity…Citește mai mult

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Organizing the profession Amongst his numerous and varied professional undertakings, particular mention must be made of those concerning veterinary public health and defense of the veterinary diploma:

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Veterinary public health As early as 1880, during an outbreak of contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, Liautard urged the federal government and the States within the Union to set up a health program for the control of infectious diseases. In 1881, he demanded the creation of State veterinarians. This epidemic was so serious that it resulted in an embargo by the British government prohibiting the export of American cattle to Great Britain and Canada. In 1883, this embargo led the federal authorities to create a veterinary service within the USDA, to eradicate the disease, entrusting its direction to Daniel Elmer Salmon who, in 1884, made it the Bureau of Animal Industry. Liautard strongly encouraged his students to become involved or take a position in this newly created public service and would, if necessary, defend them. Thus in 1889, he spoke out vehemently against what he called the « political guillotine » used on public service veterinarians, victims of the spoils system which could result in their dismissal, in response to political changes, without any consideration of their competence.

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Regulation of the veterinary diploma In 1880, Liautard was the only American representative among the 65 foreign honorary members of the British veterinary evaluation organization, the Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Using this British model as a basis, in January 1882 he devoted an editorial to promote the creation of a college of veterinary surgeons of America in the form of an association of member veterinarians responsible for electing a board of examiners which had the exclusive right to grant a diploma, which would be the only qualification recognized and required to exercise veterinary medicine, and which would require students to take a final exam before this board of examiners. This project was launched in 1948 with the creation by the AVMA of the National Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners (NBVME), and the commissioning in 1954 of a National Board Examination (NBE). To avoid conflicts of interest, the NBVME is now independent of the AVMA, and has been renamed International Council for Veterinary Assessment (ICVA). In January 1998, a computerized evaluation procedure, the North American Veterinary Licensing Examination (NAVLE®) replaced the NBE

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The promotion of scientific advances At the same time, the American Veterinary Review served not only for information and professional training but also as a means to diffuse scientific knowledge thanks to contributions by the greatest European scientists working in the field of animal health, such as Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, Edmond Nocard, Henri Toussaint, Auguste Chauveau, etc., whose articles he translated into English.

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Support for Pasteur In the very first issues of the American Veterinary Review in 1877, Liautard asserted that he was a « rational Pasteurian », adhering to the germ theory of disease, like Henri Bouley, the most illustrious French veterinarian of the time, teacher and practitioner, publishing the latter's famous lecture at the French Academy of Sciences, May 7, 1877, on the bacterial etiology of anthrax. Through his writings and teaching, he led the entire American veterinary profession to subscribe to this approach, in the same way that the French would do after Bouley, whereas in both the United States and France the medical world would do so much later.

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Handover period: the JAVMA In 1896, Roscoe R. Bell, former pupil and professor at the American Veterinary College, became co-editor with Liautard. In 1900, Dr Robert W. Ellis became owner of one-third of the Journal and was responsible for its management. Liautard continued as senior editor and Bell as editor. In September 1915, the American Veterinary Medical Association purchased the Review and the publication was renamed Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, the JAVMA, that we know today as the official periodical of the association of American veterinarians. Liautard, who had retired to France in 1900, continued to contribute to each issue until his death.

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Personality His exceptional energy and capacity for hard work, the charisma exerted by this teacher on his students and former pupils, and the admiration, respect and affection that they accorded him in return, stand out as one reads the proceedings of the meetings and testimonials reported in the American Veterinary Review and the JAVMA. The impact of Liautard on his pupils and on the veterinarians of his time Smithcors writes He was characterized as very fatherly with his students, stern, and yet intimate, without allowing familiarity. Severe and friendly, strict to all and demanding of each the exact performance of his duties, he was very much liked and yet feared more or less by all. His death in 1918 was an occasion for mourning by the veterinary profession in all parts of the world. One of his students, J. W. Fink, who graduated from New York University in 1900 after this school had taken over the combined A.V.C.-N.Y.V.S., recalls sixty years later: "The American Veterinary Review was his last personal tie, and he supervised every line therein. He watched us as we wrapped and addressed them, and it always seemed as if he wanted to write a personal note to…Citește mai mult

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Liautard and American nationality In the obituary published in 1918 by the Société Centrale de Médecine Vétérinaire of which he had been president in 1911, one reads: Liautard had made himself a naturalized American; he had assimilated the customs of his adoptive country to such an extent that it was difficult when seeing, hearing or reading him to guess that this personality hid someone of French origin. Nevertheless, despite his remarkable success and perfect integration into American society, Liautard retained his French nationality. In a letter dated September 28, 1902, written from Paris to Henry MacCracken, chancellor of New York University, who had begged Liautard to return to New York to take up the post of dean of New York University New York American Veterinary College, Liautard replied: "the fact that I kept my nationality could raise objections, as was the case when I lived in New York". Smithcors also mentioned: "Although he lived in the United States for forty years and amassed a small fortune, he never became a citizen. For much of his life here he was referred to affectionately as "Frenchy" by his closest associates – although perhaps not to his face".