One of five in the Nation and one of thirty-five in the World

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” author unknown

Monday, June 29, 2020

Dr. Leonard A. Anderson of Glenwood City – 1975



Dr.  Leonard A. Anderson of Glenwood City – WVMA President 1975

During my presidency
      The federal area veterinarian, his name was Dr. Ray Biller. He lived in Balsam Lake, and he asked ked me if I was interested in being a candidate for president of the association. Thinking that he just needed names, I said sure, you can submit my name. Then it came down to a vet in Wausau, Dr. Norb Arnoldi, and his wife was a veterinarian for the state for a while. It came down to that, I thought there wasn't much of a chance because I wasn't well known in the state, but eventually I got it. I really enjoyed the meetings. We would try to visit all of the local associations throughout the state. While you're president-elect one of your roles is to visit all local associations and that was one of the parts that I think I enjoyed the most, but I didn't like the driving.

Annual meeting
       We had a hypnotist at the banquet. I don't remember that we had a speaker. We didn't as such, but we had a hypnotist that was very entertaining.

Veterinary school issue
       The school was being considered at that time and I frankly had a lot of indecision about if we needed the school. Of course, I'm up here pretty close to Minnesota, so that might have swayed some of my thinking about it. But in Minnesota, talking to the Dean and people from there, said they would increase the capacity and increase their numbers up to like 40 out of Wisconsin if we would make a compact with them. So, I had lots of indecision about a school.
       This was totally our feeling up here in northwest Wisconsin. It was probably 95 percent opposed to a school. So I kept questioning it. It wasn't very popular to say down there, especially to Bill O'Rourke, because he was gung-ho on the school and felt that that would enhance our prestige if we had a school in our state and I had no trouble believing that. You know, I just didn't think the school made that much difference, but it sounds like it's going and they've got it functioning well.

The changing profession
      The profession was changing even at that time and it looked promising. There were all kinds of ways of making a living, plus doing a good job, but I thought we should have used more of the techniques and lab work and that type of thing than what we were using. My partners weren't always convinced that we should spend money that way, but I would have preferred to have more, and maybe that was using them as a crutch. You still have to make a diagnosis somehow.
       One of the things I started trying was to get a program for so many dollars, I think the first figure I used was $26 per cow per year. I would do all the pregnancy work, and put magnets in all the heifers, dry cow treatment, then culture them, and worm the cows as they were coming fresh. This program was supposed to increase production by 480 pounds, they proved it in Wisconsin. Bangs vaccination of the heifers didn't sell very good.
       When I was practicing, every mile that use to have two or three farms, may not have any more. So I was just counting the road, coming in on Hwy. 128 from Hwy. 12, the number of farms that use to have cattle, and I think I counted 12 active dairy farms in 1960. And there are two now.





Final thoughts
       I kept thinking that I was sure I'd want to start practicing again. But it's changed enough that maybe, at my age, I'd have trouble coping with the paperwork, and the government regulations, and restrictions on types of medicines.

Burr Nussdorfer - Personal Comments
Good evening, this is Burr Nussdorfer, and I'm home. It's around 8p.m. after kind of a long day and I just thought that it might be worth a couple minutes to put a little addendum on the tape so to speak. Today was a real long day. We left early this morning and didn't get home until just a little bit ago. I would like to say that this finishes my
responsibility as far as the interviews are concerned, and that I've enjoyed the visits very much. The visits carried me into southwest Wisconsin, south central Wisconsin, north central Wisconsin, and today the last thing up in northwest Wisconsin. These doctors who were interviewed were of my era so to speak and their practices originally were mostly with food-producing animals. Dairy farm numbers have gone down greatly in all the practices that I visited but, oddly enough the personnel in these practices have increased in numbers and they are busy and are branching into different fields, so that's very encouraging. Another thing I thought was interesting was to hear about the families about all these different veterinarians, how successful practically all of them are; many of them are in professional fields. I think that attests to good family upbringing that so much of that we don't see now, so, Fred and our Historical Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to do these interviews.


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