I think just being hands-on and making a difference, actually, probably that was at Baltimore … For the amount of effort and things you did, I got the biggest reward out of improving the animal collection. When I got to national, they had some of the preventative medicines, those programs… Read More
So that was kind of it. We kind of had a newsletter and he, through the Smithsonian, was able to get the postage, and we had a kind of a newsletter long before we had a journal. And that was kind of just a informal, “Well gosh, I did this… Read More
I think the communication between veterinarians in the beginning was mainly through personal contacts. We had phone numbers of the other six or seven people that, you know, that we would talk to. We didn’t do a lot of publishing, although I published my first couple of papers when I… Read More
Was it difficult juggling your work at Johns Hopkins and the zoo when you were there?… Read More
And then it was doing all right and then crashed again with the hip joint, filled up with pus and I tapped it, and got out and I said, “Okay, I need some help.” So I called the Children’s Hospital over in Washington DC, and talked, tried to get somebody… Read More
Were some of the procedures you were doing in Baltimore, were they cutting edge in any way, because maybe they were first time, and were you able then to share them with the other veterinarians, or were they sharing things with you that were then helping you?… Read More
And okay, I’ll be over there in 15 minutes.” So he came over and it was the Head of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, and he looked at it, and he said, “Well, what we gotta do is just open up the joints, and let ’em drain.” So he just… Read More
I would say bringing them in as collaborators, because you have to direct them. You know, if somebody comes in, and thinks they’re gonna do all this stuff, and do all these things and do, I said, “We can’t do that on this animal. You know, it isn’t gonna work. Read More
We had … At the Baltimore Zoo, there was this black leopard that was having seizures, and so they got it into a crate, and brought it down into the animal holding area, so I’m sitting down there, and here is a crate with an opening about this big, with… Read More
Then I have another great story of … When I was at the National Zoo, we had this orangutan that was born, and orangutans, you know, can get septic from umbilical infections, and this one had a swollen elbow joint, and we had some pus, and you know, it wasn’t… Read More
Were at the time when you were in Baltimore, were were vets, how many vets were in the zoos that were part-time as you were or full-time?… Read More
Not much, we kind of just, we were flying by what we were doing, and we lost some animals and I’m … What I told my interns and residents and associates that I’ve had, I said, “You know, I made a lot of mistakes, and it’s my job to make… Read More
Well now this is a story that I’m not sure that I can verify, but this is kind of the story that as I remember it, ’cause when I got to National Zoo, Clint Gray and I sat around one morning drinking coffee and just talking, trying to figure out… Read More
Now did you have a lot of people that you could lean on then?… Read More
You mentioned Clint Gray for advice on these anesthesias?… Read More
And so we started looking at, well what in the world are we gonna do, how are we gonna move an elephant?… Read More
So I was reading the brochure on M99, which I told you was kind of bogus and stuff, but that was all we had. There was a few people with a little bit of experience with M99 in elephants, Clint Gray, my mentor, was one of the first persons I… Read More
Well, the classic statement is half vast. It was a little bit of emphasis on the pronunciation of that. Well, that was where I first used M99. It was the first time I’d done a lot of primate anesthesia, and that was the first time I used M99 on an… Read More
They’re trumpeting, they’re running around the place. I hand drawn the syringe, I say, “Here, go in and give the reversal.” Of course he didn’t do it. We had to dart the reversal, and the elephant got up in about 15 minutes, and there was celebration by the other elephants,… Read More
And so he did that at Phoenix, and they were calling me, and he said, “My gosh, he’s vomiting, he’s vomiting, and then he’s gonna eat it. So we’ve been washing it all out of the …” I said, “No, wait, wait, that’s part of his physique, you know, part… Read More