János M. Mészáros, DVM was born on the 29th of April, 1929. in a small village, Mocsa in Komárom County. He graduated as doctor of veterinary medicine on 20 January, 1954 at the College of Veterinary Science. He had been working at the Department of Pathology from the 1st of February, 1954 until his retirement on the 1st of November, 1989.
As a researcher he dealt with pulmonary deformations due to chronic salmonellosis in swine, swine fever, with diseases caused by capillaries and toxoplasms, with mastitis in cows of different etiology (also experimentally), with congenital brain oedema of dogs, and with different diseases of zoo animals. He prepared 31 veterinary publications between 1957 and 1990 partly with co-authors in Hungarian and foreign journals. He received a niveau prize for being a co-author of the book entitled "A háziállatok diagnosztikai boncolása" (Diagnostic disseaction of domestic animals) issued in 1992 and 1998 respectively.
He started to collect the numismatic tokens of Hungarian veterinary history in 1984. His book entitled "Magyar állatorvosi érmek, plakettek és jelvények - Numismatic tokens of veterinary history in Hungary", illustrated by 105 photos, covering the 1905-1985 period, came out in December, 1986 as a publication of the University of Veterinary Science. The English language part of the book was also published in the 1988/3-4 issue of the journal "Historia medicinae veterinariae" of the World Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine. Ten years later the author continued the project with the inclusion of numismatic tokens between 1985 and 1995. (Magyar Állatorvosok Lapja. 1999. 121. 114-122.)
He also made compilations in the following topics of veterinary historic numsimatics:
1. Numismatic tokens of the activity of the veterinarians of Phylaxia abroad, 1966-1985.
2. Jubilee medals and plaquettes of some (11) foreign veterinary schools.
3. International honour of the Hungarian veterinary profession during the past 100 years in the light of numismatics I-III.
4. Foreign merit orders and medals conferred to Hungarian veterinarians in the last 100-year period. I-III.
5. Veterinary historic relations of the Balassa-award.
6. Data to the biography of Prof. J. Mina
7. State medals given for serving Hungarian animal health between 1869 and 2000. I-IV.
He gathered the graves and tumbs of the late professors of the Unviersity of Veterinary Science in the Farkasrét and Fiume Street graveyards.
He summarized the results of his numismatic research in 26 publications and 13 oral presentations delivered in the 21st Symposium of the World Assocaiton for the History of Veterinary Medicine, the meetings of the Numistmatic Section of the Association of Hungarian Medical History, and that of the Hungarian Numismatic Society.
He gathered and compiled data on the statues, monuments, memorial tablets, paintings of relevance to veterianry history and bibliographic data referring to them covering the 1872-2003 period, which served as the basis of the digital veterinary pantheon.

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