At the time I took over the zoo, Marlin, certainly, had never budgeted anything for the medical department, as I mentioned earlier. Whatever that $75 a month stipend may have been and no hospital and no facility, so I, of course, proceeded logically. I was there and I would look after the health of the animals as best I could in addition to doing the administrative work. And by again, happy coincidence, a man that I’d met at the Anti-Cruelty Society who had been in the clinic, a veterinarian named Dr. Eric Maskin. Eric had an interesting little practice on the near north side of Chicago, he had a place on north Dearborn Street, lived in a wonderful three-story brownstone there, had his clinic on the first floor, lived down the second floor with his wife, Edna, and she was a professional painter and she had her studio on the third floor. And Eric didn’t have a hospital per se, people just came from mostly that neighborhood area, and he took care of things as a clinician. And so I said to Eric, “Eric, you live right near the zoo. “Would you mind becoming a part-time zoo doctor “just as I was, and look after the kids the way I did.” And he happily agreed, for him it was a fun thing to think about.
