Page 47 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

In the very early days when very little was known about the multitude of diseases confronting them veterinarians had to be extremely versatile in all branches of the profession in their attempts initially to differen- tiate between the diseases and then to determine their aetiology. One of these branches or fields is pathology which played, and still plays, a role either as an
adjunct to other disciplines, the patholo- gist being a member of a research team studying a particular problem, or as a disci- pline in its own right.
In the pre-1908 planning of the main
building of the Bacteriological Laboratory
(or Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute as
we know it today) provision was made for
a post-mortem hall and a laboratory for
the cutting and staining of animal tissue
specimens for microscopical examination
(while still at the Daspoort laboratory Theiler
had had his father send him a microtome
for sectioning wax-impregnated animal
tissues for microscopic study). In addition,
on the second floor, was a room which,
inter alia, included a pathology museum of
preserved animal organs. The post-mortem
hall, which is currently put to other uses,
was situated on the north-west aspect of the main building, and was ‘connected’ to the animal stables and yards and ‘destructor’ by a narrow guage railway line which ran right into the hall. Animals destined for necropsy and subsequent incineration were placed upon flat-bottomed ‘trucks’ or ‘cars’
Pathology R.C. TUSTIN
ONDERSTEPOORT 100
which were manually pushed along the railway line into the post-mortem hall. The trucks had folding sides which were flapped down to enable the necropsy to be performed on them. After the examination, they were pushed to the distant ‘destructor’ which consisted of two incineration units with a tall chimney in between. It could incinerate five or six
horses daily as well as refuse. When Theiler moved from the Daspoort Laboratory to Onderstepoort he took with him his old Daspoort hands. Amongst them was his ‘post-mortem assistant,’ ‘Ou Piet’ whose death from glanders, no doubt contracted from an infected horse, some years later was a deep personal loss to Theiler. (It is regretted that the full name of ‘Ou Piet’ could not be traced.)
This post-mortem hall was used for its intended purpose until 1917 when a new, more spacious hall was built on the site of the present Pathology building. This post-mortem hall stood alone until, in the early 1920s, it was incorporated as such into a new building, the present Pathology Building (see below), and in addition a second storey housing laboratories and/or offices was built above it. This post-mortem
hall is still used today. As in the case of the first post-mortem hall, the railway line system connected it to the stables near the Main Building and the incinerator.
At the ceremony held in 1917 to celebrate the new post- mortem hall’s opening, Theiler told those present that in the 9
‘Destructor’ for the incineration of carcasses (1908), with its landmark chimney
“When Theiler moved from the Daspoort Laboratory to Onderstepoort he took with him his old Daspoort hands. Amongst them
was his ‘post-mortem assistant,’ ‘Ou Piet’ whose death from glanders, no doubt contracted from an infected horse, some years later was a deep personal loss to Theiler.”
137
First post-mortem hall in the back wing of the Old Main Building, 1908
Pathology
1908-2008
Years