author
b. 1882
An early Kansas veterinarian who helped shape practical animal care, he wrote straightforward books on surgery, lameness, and small-animal practice for working professionals. His career links hands-on practice with some of the early hospital care developed for animal patients in the state.
John Victor Lacroix was born in 1882 and is remembered as an early graduate of the Kansas City Veterinary College. Kansas State University's history of the college says he opened a general veterinary practice in Hiawatha, Kansas, in 1906.
That same history notes that in 1908 he built a hospital with stalls for large animal patients, described there as the first hospital in Kansas built specifically for the hospitalization of animal patients. He was also listed in the 1910–11 college catalogue as a professor of surgical anatomy, operative surgery, and veterinary science.
Lacroix also wrote practical veterinary books aimed at practitioners. Works linked to him in library and public-domain records include Animal Castration (1915), Lameness of the Horse (1916), Canine-feline Practice (1936), and Canine Surgery (1939), showing a career focused on useful clinical guidance across both large- and small-animal medicine.