Veterinarian and chief inspector at the U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry, and leading authority on Foot and Mouth Disease.
1872-1925 | Artist: Robert Wadsworth Grafton (1876-1936)
Impact & Accomplishments
Born in East Liverpool, Ohio, Samuel E. Bennett completed his doctorate of veterinary medicine at Ohio State University in 1890 and was immediately appointed chair of the Department of Veterinary Science at the University of Kentucky, where he served for six years.
He was then veterinarian and chief inspector at the U. S. Bureau of Animal Industry, and later, at Union Stock Yards in Chicago. Dr. Bennett was an authority on foot-and-mouth disease and oversaw the closure of the International Live Stock Exposition in 1914, during the epizootic.
Bennett died in 1925, the result of a traffic accident.
Did You Know?
The US has had nine Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks since it was first recognized on the northeastern coast in 1870. The most devastating happened in 1914. It originated from Michigan, but its entry into the stockyards in Chicago turned it into an epizootic. About 3,500 livestock herds were infected across the US, totaling over 170,000 cattle, sheep, and swine. The eradication came at a cost of US$4.5 million, a huge sum of money in 1914.
November 1914 Courtesy Washington State University.