The Animals Came in One by One

by Buster Lloyd-Jones

Another book I picked up for free one day. The Animals Came in One by One is the memoir of a British veterinarian. He grew up a sickly child, surviving scarlet fever and polio, but forever weakened by them. His childhood sickbed was always surrounded by animals, and he had no doubts about becoming a vet (in spite of his father's adamant disapproval). In addition to receiving formal training, he learned from the animals themselves, observing what plants they ate when feeling ill and concocting remedies from things like wild garlic and herbs. The brief anecdotes and descriptions of his many animal patients and acquaintances are pleasing, but what I found most interesting was reading about the National Air Raid Precautions Committee. During WWII, the vet was in charge of rescuing pets from rubble after air raids, often taking them in when their owners could not be found. In fact, hundreds of pets were euthanized when their owners had to flee the country and couldn't take them along. Dr. Lloyd-Jones refused to do this and instead bought ten acres where he housed over two hundred dogs, cats and various other animals for up to five years during the war. Although I really admired the work the author did, and the book was pretty nice, the writing style is very plain and began to bore me in the end. I liked it all right, but can't get very enthusiastic over it.

Rating: 2/5 ........ 221 pages, 1966