All My Patients Are Under the Bed

Memoirs of a Cat Doctor
by Louis J. Camuti

This book is about a veterinarian, particularly fond of cats, who made house calls to his patients in New York City. There's lots of amusing anecdotes, but most were too brief in description or duration to really satisfy me. Camuti describes the inevitable search for cats who hide when he arrives, the quirks of cat lovers and the eccentricities of rich and famous cat owners. He gives some advice on taking care of cats, warning against household hazards and recommending what to feed your cat (baby food!). A holiday risk I had not thought of was Christmas trees- one of Camuti's patients died from toxins after eating the needles. Some of the stories I remember were of a siamese cat who liked to get its fur groomed with the vacuumn cleaner, a long-haired cat which was allowed on the dinner table and frequently set its tail on fire from the candles, and a butler who purposefully overfed his employer's cat because he wanted it to beat the world record for weight. One of my favorite parts of the book describes when Camuti kept practicing into his eighties, and could no longer climb stairs. A lot of the apartment buildings he visited had no elevators and he would treat patients in the downstairs hallways, running equipment off yards of extension cords strung from the owners' rooms and startling casual visitors who found him standing in the hall holding a syringe. All My Patients Are Under the Bed will be of interest to a cat lover, but most of the book really did not stick with me.

Rating: 2/5                   222 pages, 1980

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Words by Annie