Page 56 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

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ERSTEPOORT 100
Pienaar went to the AFIP primarily to study electron microscopy techniques and their application to pathology, Coetzer the pathology and pathogenesis of Rift Valley fever and hepatogenous plant photosensitivi-
ties, and Prozesky the electron microscopic pathology of heartwater and diploidiosis.
One of McCully’s first major projects while in South Africa was on the pathology of bilharziasis (schistosomosis) and other parasitic infestations of hippopotami in the Kruger National Park, the results being published in 1967. He was also a member of the research team comprising Basson, J.W. van Niekerk, McCully and R.D. Bigalke that, in 1965, discovered the presence of Besnoita cysts in blue wildebeest (see above) which led to the production of a live vaccine for the protection of cattle against besnoitiosis.
Some of the other studies in which McCully was concerned include observa- tions on bilharziasis of domestic ruminants in South Africa; the pathology of Cordo- philus sagittus infestation in kudus, bushbuck and African buffaloes, cytauxzoonosis in
a giraffe, uterine coccidiosis in impalas caused by Eimeria neitzi sp. nov., parasitic and other diseases of the African elephant; herpes nodules in the lungs of African elephants (the
herpesvirus concerned was subsequent- ly isolated by B.J. Erasmus, a virologist at the Institute, and others); hepatozoonosis of wild carnivores and dogs in South Africa; and, with W.O. Neitz, histopathological findings in the nervous system and other organs of treated and untreated horses reacting to nagana (Trypanosoma brucei infection).
E.E. McConnel, the second pathologist from the AFIP to arrive at the Institute, followed in the footsteps of his predecessor in that his interest also lay chiefly in the pathology of diseases of wildlife. Examples of the latter are his studies on nasal acariosis in the chacma baboon; oocysts of Iso- spora papionis in the skeletal muscles of chacma baboons; and a survey of the diseases among 100 free-ranging baboons from the Kruger National Park. He and Tustin in the late 1960s decided one day that they wished to study the macroscopic
The first of the American Pathologists from the AFIP to work at the Institute was the then Captain (now Colonel-retired) R.M. McCully who arrived in 1962 and initially stayed for 6 years. He was a prodigious research pathologist whose main interest during this period was diseases of game which, generally working with specialists
in other scientific fields, resulted in the discovery of several previously unrecorded parasites. After retiring from the AFIP in 1975, he returned to South Africa and worked at Stellenbosch University for 2 and then at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town for 4 years where part of his work involved the pathology of rejected organs of laboratory animals in transplant experiments. He returned to Onderstepoort as an ordinary undergraduate student in the Department of Reproduction under R.I. Coubrough. When the last
of the six AFIP pathologists left the Section in 1987 he asked
the then Director of the Institute (R.D. Bigalke) if he could
not again work in the Pathology Section in an unpaid
capacity (or, as he puts it, as a ‘hanger-on’). Permission
was granted and he stayed there for 3 more years.
It was during this latter period that he and five
other well-known pathologists (including Coetzer)
commenced working on an atlas entitled ‘The AFIP-
Onderstepoort Program Colour Atlas of Foreign
and Domestic Diseases of Pastoral Animals and
Other Selected Species’ which was only launched in
2007 in digital format.
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PART 3
History of Individual Disciplines
1908-2008
Years