I read the obits every day. I know I am not alone in doing this daily ritual. Many people read them for the obvious reasons. I started reading them because my mom moved from one area of NJ to another and no longer got the local paper, so I made sure that if anyone died she might know, I could let her know. Now it is simply a part of my reading the morning paper routine.
The thing is I learn new things occasionally by reading them. For example, in today’s paper a well-known veterinarian, Dr. Clarence Manziano, passed away, who lived in the town where I grew up. I have no recollection of this man, but what is interesting is the fact that he did a great deal for Vet medicine. Returning to the United States, he testified before the New Jersey Legislature and was responsible for passage of the "Manziano Act”, which made it possible for veterinarians of Italian and Jewish descent to sit for the veterinary exam in New Jersey.
Before passage, only veterinarians educated in New Jersey could sit for the exam, and since no Italian or Jewish applicants were accepted during the 1940s, minorities were effectively precluded from practicing veterinary medicine in the state.
Among his many accomplishments, he worked as senior veterinarian for the Mexican American Foot and Mouth Commission to eliminate the deadly cattle disease, and was the U.S. delegate for the United Nations Commission on Foot and Mouth Disease.
Dr. Manziano worked as a field veterinarian for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Delaware and Maryland until 1952, when he took the post of veterinary epidemiologist for the New Jersey State Department of Health. It was during this period that he uncovered the transmission of the disease Psittacosis from an aviary of 5,000 birds to dairy cows and humans.
There is always something to learn somewhere.
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