Page 62 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

OND
ERSTEPOORT 100
flow cabinet for this purpose was turned down and in 1975 he contracted psittacosis. His doctors refused to accept his own diagnosis and continued to treat him for a nonspecific pneumonia until he very nearly died. Consequently, his eventual recovery took a very long time. He left Onderstepoort in 1977 to join a major egg producing company. In
1980 he received his master’s degree with a dissertation on the evaluation of immunity and protection against Newcastle disease (NCD). His work on vaccine development resulted in the production of a pigeon pox vaccine in 1965, a LaSota NCD vaccine in 1968, an infectious bronchitis H120 vaccine, a modern inactivated oil adjuvant NCD vaccine in 1970, an inactivated oil adjuvant avian influenza H7N1 vaccine and an autogenous Salmonella vaccine (bacteria in mineral oil adjuvant) in 1993.
From 1961 to 1967 N.S. (Stan) van Blerk worked with Abrams, though mainly in the Bacteriology Section, and was involved in Mycoplasma antigen production. The plate antigen was needed for the Mycoplasma eradication scheme. In 1964 he was joined by J.H. (Jan) du Preez who remained in the Poultry Section until 1974, his main concern being the classification of poul- try mycoplasmas. This work also was the subject of his master’s dissertation and was central to the mycoplasmosis eradication scheme, which unfortunately had to be abandoned when importations of breeding
152 stock forced the adoption of new policies. In the 1980s du Preez was to become the main driving force behind the broiler ascites research project carried out by the Poultry Section. Van Blerk ultimately returned to the Poultry Section of the Faculty in a part-time capacity in 2004.
S.B. (Fanie) Buys worked as a technician
under Abrams from 1961 to 1962, and
returned after graduating as veterinarian in 1968. When Coetzee left in 1977 Buys became head of the Poultry Sec- tion of the Institute and continued in that capacity until 1982 when he left to take over the laboratory of a broiler company. His main achievements at the Institute were the production of one of the first oil emulsion coryza vaccines, which became the subject of his master’s thesis, the discovery of turkey rhinotracheitis virus and investigations into the involvement of a related viral agent in ‘dikkop’ in broilers.
Until the complete separation of the Faculty from the Institute in 1973 lectures were given on a part-time basis by personnel of the Poultry Section of the Institute. After the separation Poultry Diseases fell into the then Department of Infectious Diseases at the Faculty under P.G. (Peter) Howell
and the subject was taught by Abrams who returned to the Faculty as associate professor. Abrams introduced a specialized master’s degree for poultry diseases, the MMedVet (Altil) (altilia is the Latin word for poultry). The first recipient of this degree was M.A. (Marek) Kloryga for his work on
the pathogenicity of rough Escherichia coli isolates from poultry, carried out in the 1980s at the Poultry Section of the Institute. Because of the lack of buildings at the Faculty the new Department of Infectious Diseases was housed first in the Wool Building of the Institute and in 1976 moved to a newly erected prefabricated building on the campus (which now houses overseas postgraduate students).
In 1975 Abrams was joined by F.W. (Fritz) Huchzermeyer who had qualified and specialized in Poultry Diseases in Hannover, Germany. He had worked as a poultry pathologist in the then Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and had also developed an interest in fish diseases. In 1980/1981 he was sent to Paraguay for one year at the suggestion of the Dean of the Faculty, to work on a survey of poultry production in that country. This was a political assign- ment, as at that time South Africa had few friends overseas. On his return at the end of 1981 he moved from the Faculty to the Poultry Section of the Institute to start work on fish diseases. However, when Buys left in 1982 he was made head of the Section and R.R. (Rob) Bragg was recruited for the fish work. Huchzermeyer remained head of the Poultry Section until the restructuring of the Institute in 1987 when the Poultry Section was combined with Small Animal Produc- tion and, because of his seniority, J.L. (Jean) du Plessis became nominal head while lea- ving day-to-day decisions to Huchzermeyer.
In the meantime H.N. (Henk) van der Made had been appointed at the Faculty to take over Huchzermeyer’s lectures in addition to veterinary law, while Abrams’ interest had shifted to calf diseases before he took over the poultry lectures at Medunsa. Van der Made left the
Faculty in 1989 and emigrated to Finland.
In addition to the diagnostic routine and instigated by
du Preez, Huchzermeyer’s main scientific quest at the OVI was to link ‘water belly’ in broilers to altitude disease, to prove its heritability, to determine its clinical indicators and to develop models which could be used for further study of it in the laboratory. Van Blerk also contributed his findings on ascites. In an environment where microbiology reigned supreme the laboratory was ill equipped to investigate a physiological disorder. A.N.C. (An) de Ruyck’s dedicated
PART 3
History of Individual Disciplines
1908-2008
Years