Page 55 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

suffering from the disease. The foregoing, in practice, meant that many animals suspected to be suffering from rabies were not immediately euthanased but were kept under observation until they either recovered (i.e. did not have
the disease) or died from what possibly was it. This also delayed the making of a definitive diagnosis. Tustin, who had joined the Section in 1958, and Smit in 1962 analysed the results of the histopathological examinations of 1074 suspected rabid animals (not mice) over a 10-year period. They found, inter alia, that the overall efficiency of the histological test was 66% and that there was no statistical difference between the efficiency of the histological diagnosis of animals that had died from rabies and that of those that were killed while suffering from it.
In the early 1960s Smit was granted
leave for a year to work in a ‘Residence
Program’ at the Angel Memorial Hospital
in Boston, USA under the well-known
pathologist and co-author of the book
Veterinary Pathology, Dr Carl Jones. Here he
was brought up to date with the trends in the pathology of companion animals and, on his return to South Africa, he was able to impart them to his colleagues at the Institute.
Smit commenced lecturing in Pathology in a part-time capacity at the Faculty in 1950 and became Professor and head of the Section of Pathology in 1963 when Schulz retired from that position. He was promoted to
Sub-Director at the Institute in 1961. He held the professorship until 31 March 1973 when the Faculty became independent of the Institute. His position as head of the Section was taken over by Tustin in 1968 until 1970 when the latter resigned from the Institute.
One of the most outstanding patholo- gists to work at the Institute was P.A. Basson who, after qualifying at Onderstepoort, commenced his career in 1955 as a state veterinarian in South West Africa (now Namibia). At his own request he transferred to the Section of Pathology at the Institute in 1963 principally to further his keen interest in research. In 1972 he returned to South West Africa. While at Onderstepoort he rose to the rank of Assistant Director and during 1970 he was part-time lecturer in pathology at the Faculty.
While at Onderstepoort Basson made
significant contributions to our knowledge of the pathology of several diseases of domestic animals (see box). Other examples are heartwater, toxoplasmosis, nosematosis, ephemeral fever,
ONDERSTEPOORT 100
diamidine poisoning in dogs, cerebral babesiosis in dogs, maldronksiekte (Solanum tettense poisoning) in cattle, and geeldikkop.
I.B.J. (Sakkie) van Rensburg commenced his long association with Veterinary Patho- logy at the Institute and Faculty imme- diately after qualifying in 1965, his pathology colleagues at the time being Smit, Tustin, Basson, J.G. Pienaar and J.L. du Plessis. He was appointed part-time lecturer in Pathology in 1967 and on 1 April 1973 became the first full-time senior lecturer in the subject when the Faculty became administratively independent of the Institute. His interest lay principally in the pathology of toxic plants. He was one of a team of researchers who determined that the fungus Phomopsis leptostromifor- mis, growing on lupins was toxic to sheep (see Part 3: Toxicology).
In 1972 E.M. van Tonder, Basson and van Rensburg presented convincing ex- perimental evidence that the ingestion of the dubbeltjie plant, Tribulus terrestris, can
cause geeldikkop, a hepatogenous photosensitivity disease in sheep. This was only the third time after Theiler (in 1918) and J.I. Quin (in 1928 and 1929) that the disease had been reproduced experimentally in sheep. The microscopic lesions in the liver they observed corresponded to those of natural cases and those described by Theiler, the most characte-
ristic being the presence of cholesterol-like material, and the clefts left behind when
it was dissolved during processing of the 145 material for examination, in hepatocytes
and Kupffer cells, and within bile ducts
(see Part 3: Toxicology).
In the early 1960s an exchange pro- gramme between veterinary pathologists of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington DC, USA and the Pathology Section of the Veterinary Re- search Institute came into being at the instigation of the AFIP. This resulted in a long and very fruitful liaison in which seven American pathologists came to South Africa and three pathologists from South Africa went to Washington DC. The Americans are R.M. McCully (1963-1969), E.E. McConnell (1969-1972), G. Imes (1972-1975), A. van Dellen (1975-1979), J. Pletcher (1979- 1982), T. O’Neal (1982-1984) (deceased) and M. Langford (1984-1987), and the
three South Africans who went to Washington for a year, are J.G. Pienaar (1965), J.A.W. Coetzer (1980/81) and L. Prozesky (1983/84).
Pathology
1908-2008
Years