Jean Holzworth

Jean Holzworth (March 26, 1915 – January 13, 2007) was an American veterinarian known for her work in feline medicine. She initially acquired a doctorate in Latin and taught at Mount Holyoke College, before retraining in veterinary medicine in the 1940s. Between 1950 and 1986 she practiced at the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Boston, specializing in the care of cats. She was among the first to document a number of disorders affecting the species, including feline infectious peritonitis and hyperthyroidism, and was editor of the well-regarded 1987 book Diseases of the Cat.

Holzworth has been described in professional literature as "the definitive expert in feline medicine of her generation" and noted for her "immeasurable importance" to the field.

Early life Jean Holzworth was born on March 26, 1915, in Port Chester, New York. She grew up on a farm in Connecticut, where as a young girl she reportedly operated an amateur veterinary clinic for the farm cats and marked their deaths using a "Cat's Funeral March" of her own composition. She attended school at Greenwich Academy, As a senior in 1935, she won a national competition organized by the University of Cincinnati to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of the Roman poet Horace, receiving the $1000 prize by unanimous decision of the judges. The competition required entrants to translate poetry by Horace, write an essay on "Horace and Augustus", and compose an original Latin poem in the manner of Horace. Holzworth's Latin poem was written during Benito Mussolini's preparations for the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and commented on his efforts at conquest. The competition rules required each entrant to submit under a pseudonym; Holzworth used the name "John Michael" and the judges assumed she was a man. She returned to Bryn Mawr to complete an M.A. and Ph.D. in Latin. Hyginus' editor H. J. Rose agreed this allowed at least one passage of the Fabulae to be reconstructed more accurately.

Holzworth taught at Mount Holyoke College in the early 1940s. She took time off teaching to work as a ward attendant at the Speyer Memorial Animal Hospital in New York City, before entering the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University.

Holzworth authored a number of important studies of feline disorders with her Angell colleagues, and she came to be recognized as a leading authority in the field. With Angell's Gus Thornton, she was responsible for the first formal documentation of hyperthyroidism in cats. The designation as a "classic" was endorsed by Donald F. Smith in a historical article published in 2011.

Holzworth was a charter member of the Specialty of Internal Medicine within the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine.