Water For Elephants Trumpets Cornell

Posted by Donald F. Smith, Cornell University

April 26, 2011

A half century ago, Norman Rockwell painted an image of a young veterinarian examining a little boy’s dog. Partly obscured in the background is a Cornell University diploma. The year, 1963, was the centennial of the American Veterinary Medical Association. On the threshold of the AVMA’s 150^th anniversary, another veterinary image has emerged in American pop culture and, once again, Cornell University is featured.



Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
Photo provided by Cornell.

 The movie, Water for Elephants, depicts a 1931 Cornell veterinary student who runs away during his final exams because of a family tragedy. Jacob Jankowski hops a circus train and claims to be a veterinarian. His prime charge was an Asian elephant named Rosie.

The movie follows Sara Gruen’s novel by the same title, including about 20 direct references to Cornell University and the Ivy League. For Cornellians everywhere―and especially for the 4,000 DVMs scattered across the country and around the world―there is great pride in seeing our college depicted on the big screen.

But how accurate is that depiction?  The following questions should test your knowledge of veterinary medicine at Cornell during the Depression. (Answers follow)

1.   Jacob Jankowski was forced to leave Cornell because his father (also a veterinarian) had mortgaged the family business to pay for his son’s tuition. How much was tuition during the Depression?

2.   How many women were in Jacob’s class? The movie highlights one who sits next to Jacob during his final examination, and appears to depict at least one other. In the novel, author Sara Gruen says there were four.

3.   A picture was seen for a fleeting second on the wall of the examination room when Jacob was leaving the room to learn of his parents’ death?  Was it the portrait of university founder Ezra Cornell or President Herbert Hoover?

4.   Did it take six years to become a veterinarian?

5.   Is the movie correct in describing the veterinary degree as Doctor of Veterinary Science?

6.   When did Cornell become part of the Ivy League?

7.   Would Jacob have lived with his parents while attending college?

Answers:

1.   Because of the land grant agreement, there was no tuition for New York State students until the 1960s. This challenges the movie’s central premise that the Jankowski family lost everything because of tuition payments?

2.   Though Cornell’s first woman veterinarian graduated in 1910, most classes in the next 30 years -- including Jacob's class -- had none. The Class of 1940 was the first to have four women.

3.   Though not an exact depiction, it appears to be an image of the veterinary college’s first professor and dean (principal), James Law.

4.   It did not: four years after high school was the prescribed length at that time. The youngest member of the Class of 1931 was the recently deceased Dr. Lawrence Waitz. He entered Cornell at age 16 and graduated at 20.

5.   Except for the period before 1896 when the degree was Bachelor of Veterinary Science (in the British tradition), the Cornell veterinary degree has always been Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.

6.   The Ivy League was not established until 1954.

7.   Almost certainly not. Most students were poor, living in modest single rooms near campus.

Enjoy the movie!

Dr. Smith welcomes comments at dfs6@cornell.edu

Water for Elephants is Not Enough: The Disease that is Killing Baby Elephants

Posted by Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
April 25, 2011

Like millions of other movie-goers, I watched Water For Elephants on opening weekend. As remarkable as the story and the acting by Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz and supporting cast was, it was elephant Rosie’s performance that was totally captivating. Her grace and elegance, her ability to collapse, expand and trumpet that 9,000-pound frame was nothing short of breath taking.

Foreground: Tai, who stars as Rosie in "Water for Elephants", and her nephew, JP, who succumbed to a devastating Herpes viral infection in February, 2011. Please consider donating to the research efforts to stomp out this killer. Photo provided by Kari and Gary Johnson, Have Trunk Will Travel.

As Rosie’s veterinarian, Dr. Linda Peddie told me when I interviewed her in February, “Tai (who plays Rosie) is the best-trained and most mature elephant in the world.”

Some people watching the movie were horrified by the images of animal cruelty depicted towards Rosie. However, Gary and Kari Johnson, the husband-and-wife owners and trainers of Tai, were absolutely adamant that nothing harm her, either physically or emotionally. For example, during the depiction of Waltz’s most severe beating of Rosie, the handlers gently moved Tai out of harm’s way. Again Dr. Peddie, “Because Tai has never known mistreatment, she does not view the flailing rampage as anything more than some imbecile beating the air."

Even though there is superb care, veterinary attention, and humane treatment of Tai and the other five elephants at the Johnsons' ranch Have Trunk Will Travel, they have been affected by a devastating and unseen virus that kills elephants worldwide. It is a relatively new viral disease called Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus (EEHV), and it affects baby elephants in both captivity and in the wild with devastating results. Tai’s “nephew”, a 3½ year-old baby named JP―named in honor of veterinarian Dr. Jim Peddie―died in February, 2011. As is typical of babies with EEHV, the uncontrollable hemorrhaging disease killed JP in less than 48 hours.

JP’s death represented another tragic loss in the elephant world, not only because of the personal anguish at the Have Trunk Will Travel Ranch, but also because it highlights the sad reality that there is as yet neither a cure, nor a vaccine, for this deadly virus.

Research to prevent, manage and treat EEVH is being led by a consortium of veterinarians and biomedical researchers at the following institutions:

·         Smithsonian’s National Zoo

·         Baylor College of Medicine

·         Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

·         Johns Hopkins University

Please consider Donating!

To support research to stomp out the disease that is responsible for the deaths of about 25% of the baby elephants born in the United States in the last three decades, please donate to:

The International Elephant Foundation (IEF), a 501 C (3) non-profit organization. http://www.elephantconservation.org/elephant-endotheliotropic-herpes-virus/.