Obituary - Dudley Arthur Gill

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D. A. Gill died in Sydney on May 1, 1973, at the age of 72. He received his training at the Royal Veterinary College, London, where he qualified in 1922. He then did a Diploma of Veterinary State Medicine at Edinburgh. He joined the New Zealand Department of Agriculture as a Veterinary Officer and from 1928 he was second in charge at the Wallaceville Veterinary Laboratory. While he was at Wallaceville he did some first-class research on the problems of listeriosis and enterotoxaemia. The house that he built at Wallaceville he later sold to his friend Dr I. J. Cunningham.     

Max Flesch (1852-1943): veterinary anatomist, physician and Nazi victim

The Jewish physician Dr. med. Max Flesch, a student of the Würzburger anatomist Albert von K?lliker (1817-1905), was professor of anatomy, histology and embryology at the School of Veterinary Medicine in Bern from 1882-1887. He was the first at that school who unified the three anatomical fields in one hand. From his Institute came Oskar Rubeli (1861-1952) who was also his successor. From 1888 on Max Flesch was engaged as practitioner and later as gynaecologist. During the First World War he proved his worth as a hospital physician. After the war he most likely was working for another decade in his practice in Frankfurt before retiring in Hochwaldhausen at the Hessian Vogelsberg. During his retirement Flesch published his experiences as 1 nurse and hospital physician, respectively during the wars 1870/71 and 1914-1918. With the assumption of power by the National Socialists the living conditions for Jews in Germany radically changed; also Max Flesch became victim of the Nazi racism. Although very old he was carried off 1942 into the concentration camp Theresienstadt where he lost his life in May 1943. We owe Max Flesch honourable remembrance.     

Thomas Henry Hankin,B.V.Sc., M.R.C.V.S.

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Tommy Hankin was born in 1888. He graduated from the Melbourne Veterinary School in 1914. He soon joined the A.I.F. and served in the war as Veterinary Officer in Egypt and in France. After the war he went to Edinburgh and obtained his M.R.C.V.S. and then returned to New Zealand and set up practice in Pukekohe. In 1927 he joined the Department of Agriculture as a Veterinarian and was stationed successively in Wanganui, Masterton and Whangarei before his appointment as Livestock Superintendent, Auckland, where he stayed until his retirement in 1953. After he retired he moved to Pukekohe and was kept busy with land and livestock until his sudden death on November 1, 1971.     

From Osler to Olafson. The evolution of veterinary pathology in North America

Most branches of biological science in North America developed first in the United States, and later were taught and practiced in Canada. An exception was veterinary pathology, which as a discipline taught in veterinary colleges and as a field of research, developed first in Canada, and from there crossed the border to the United States. Pathology was first taught at the Montreal Veterinary College, founded in 1866 by Duncan McEachran, a graduate of the Edinburgh Veterinary College. From the outset, he formed a close association with the medical faculty of McGill University, permitting his students to attend the same classes in the basic subjects with the medical students. Eventually, the Montreal Veterinary College became formally affiliated with McGill University, as the Faculty of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Science. The McGill veterinary faculty was forced to close for economic reasons in 1903, but it left an enduring legacy, particularly in the field of veterinary pathology. The legacy, a novel concept in the 1870's, was that pathology was the cornerstone of a veterinary education; the place where anatomy, physiology, chemistry and botany met with the clinical subjects, and gave the latter meaning. This tradition was formed at the Montreal Veterinary College by the world renowned physician William Osler, North America's leading medical teacher, whom McEachran had invited to teach at the College in 1876 in addition to his duties in the faculty of medicine. Osler had studied with Virchow in Berlin and applied his methods of autopsy technique and of scientific inquiry to his teaching of both human and veterinary pathology at McGill. Osler also undertook investigations into various diseases of domestic animals, at the request of McEachran, who doubled as Chief Veterinary Inspector for the Dominion Department of Agriculture. Osler left McGill University in 1884. Only after that year did other North American veterinary schools adopt pathology as a discipline of instruction. However, by 1884, Osler had already left his indelible imprint on the students (both medical and veterinary) he had taught in Montreal, one of whom took over the teaching of pathology in the veterinary college. Another, who followed Osler's example and also studied in Berlin with Virchow, wrote the first book in the English language on veterinary post mortem technique in 1889.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

All-purpose veterinary education: a personal perspective

The Recognition Lecture is an annual honor awarded by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) to an individual whose leadership and vision have made significant contributions to academic veterinary medicine and the veterinary profession. In 2011, this prestigious honor was awarded to Dr. Peter Eyre, Dean Emeritus of the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine (VMRCVM). Dr. Eyre is a fierce advocate for veterinary medical education, with a clear vision of its value in ensuring that veterinarians are well positioned to meet societal needs. Dr. Eyre possesses an international perspective regarding the challenges and problems facing veterinary medical education and has a keen eye for getting to the heart of these challenges. He is known to ask hard questions and propose difficult choices. Dr. Eyre received his undergraduate veterinary degree (BVMS), bachelor of science degree, and PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He was Lecturer in Pharmacology at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies for seven years before joining the faculty of the University of Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College, where he was Chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Associate Director of the Canadian Centre for Toxicology. Dr. Eyre was appointed Dean of the VMRCVM in 1985, where he established the Center for Government and Corporate Veterinary Medicine in 1989. After retiring in 2003, he was named Interim Dean of the University of Calgary's new veterinary school. Among his many awards are the Norden Distinguished Teacher Award and the Sigma Psi Excellence in Research Award. In 2008 the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) honored him with the President's Award, and in 2010 the University of Edinburgh awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery. The Peter Eyre Student Leadership Award at the VMRCVM and the Peter Eyre Prize in Pharmacology at the University of Guelph are both named in his honor. He is a past president of the AAVMC, a fellow and former board member of the American Academy of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and a former member of the AVMA Legislative Advisory Committee. In the following article, Dr. Eyre offers his insights on the current debate about the future of veterinary medical education.     

Obstetrical observations by the cow doctor W. Munter (1767-1838) from Goudswaard (Prov. South-Holland)

Before the time that certified veterinarians from the Veterinary School of Utrecht became available, assistance with difficult parturitions of farm animals often was given by experienced cow doctors. Such a cow doctor was W. Munter, who practised at one of the islands of South-Holland. He had obtained a license for veterinary practice after being examined by the socalled Leyden Commission, in 1808 installed by King Louis Napoléon. In 1829 Munter communicated several of his case stories to Alexander Numan, director of the Veterinary School. These are edited and commented here. They shed light on the obstetrical problems Munter met in his practice and on the manner he solved them, and also on his views on the backwardness of many of his clients. It is concluded that Munter had a good practical knowledge and that he worked with accuracy.     

Sebastian Fey, Zuben and Erlen (Thurgau), 1791-1825]

Sebastian Fey (1791-1825) was a young veterinarian of the Swiss canton of Thurgau (founded 1803). He had first made an apprenticeship as a country veterinarian, and his educational background was very modest. But his zealousness to come out of the darknesses of empirical veterinary medicine was very strong. With a cantonal scholarship, he managed to spend a year (1813/14) at the Vienna Veterinary School. He was one of the first members of the Swiss Veterinary Association founded 1813, and published a series of papers in the early volumes of its Schweizer Archiv für Tierheilkunde, on from 1816. He also had two monographs printed in Constance publishing houses. In the second of them, he confirmed and defended the statements of Skellett, a British pioneer of foetotomy in cattle.     

Ernest Arthur Kendall: his life in peace and war

Ernest Arthur Kendall (1876-1938), whose father founded the first veterinary school in Australia, qualified as a veterinary surgeon, as did three of his brothers. He was commissioned in the Australian Army Veterinary Corps and fought with distinction in both the Boer War and World War I. He established an Australian Veterinary Hospital near Calais, France, in 1917. The Purple Cross Society of Victoria paid for the fit-out and necessary material for the running of the hospital, which treated 24,300 animals before it closed in 1919. In that year, Colonel Kendall resumed his career in the Department of Agriculture Victoria, where he was appointed Chief Veterinary Officer in 1926 and Chairman of the Milk Board in 1934. He worked toward a pure milk supply, enabled the establishment of a laboratory to test milk samples, and looked forward to a well-planned campaign for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis.     

The use of the standard exercise test to establish the clinical significance of mild echocardiographic changes in a Thoroughbred poor performer

A 4-year-old Thoroughbred gelding racehorse was referred to the Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital (OVAH) with a history of post-race distress and collapse. In the absence of any obvious abnormalities in the preceding diagnostic work-up, a standard exercise test was performed to determine an underlying cause for the post-race distress reported. In this particular case oxygen desaturation became evident at speeds as slow as 6 m/s, where PO2 was measured at 82.3 mm Hg. Similarly at a blood pH of 7.28, PCO2 had dropped to 30.0 mm Hg indicating a combined metabolic acidosis and respiratory alkalosis. The cause of the distress was attributed to a severe hypoxia, with an associated hypocapnoea, confirmed on blood gas analyses, where PO2 levels obtained were as low as 56.6 mm Hg with a mean PCO2 level of 25.4 mm Hg during strenuous exercise. Arterial oxygenation returned to normal immediately after cessation of exercise to 106.44 mm Hg, while the hypocapnoeic alkalosis, PCO2 25.67 mm Hg, persisted until the animal's breathing normalized. The results obtained were indicative of a dynamic cardiac insufficiency present during exercise. The combination of an aortic stenosis and a mitral valve insufficiency may have resulted in a condition similar to that described as high-altitude pulmonary oedema, with respiratory changes and compensation as for acute altitude disease. The results obtained were indicative of a dynamic cardiac insufficiency present during exercise and substantiate the fact that an extensive diagnostic regime may be required to establish a cause for poor performance and that the standard exercise test remains an integral part of this work-up.     

Obituaries: KC Peters

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Ken Peters, who died on 9th January 1985, was born in Southwold, England in 1921. His father was an officer in the Indian Police Force and because of this, at the early age of six, he was sent to boarding school. During his youth he received a typical classical English public school education and from it developed a life-long love of literature and poetry. One of his boasts from this period was of having George Orwell as a Tutor. His original intent was to study Divinity, but instead, in 1938, he entered the Royal Veterinary College, London.     

Remembrances of Jacques Jenny, DrMedVet 1917–1971

Editor's note : The holding of the 19th Annual Meeting of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons in Philadelphia in conjunction with the Centennial Celebration of the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania provides an opportunity for reflection. Dr. Jacques Jenny, Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at the School, was Chairman of the Organizing Committee that gave rise to the American College of Veterinary Surgeons on December 16,1965, and was elected as first President of the College. The solid foundation and high ideals that the Organizing Committee established are in large part responsible for the success of the College. Dr. Jenny died on November 20, 1971. Those of us fortunate to have known him personally realize the immense gap that his premature death left. For those that did not know him, I hope that this article permits some appreciation of the contributions of Dr. Jenny the comparative orthopedic surgeon, as well as of the very special human qualities of Jacques Jenny the man. The first author, Dr. Mark Allam, was Professor of Surgery and Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine during most of Dr. Jenny's career at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the first Chairman of the Board of Regents of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. The second author, Dr. David Nunamaker, is the first holder of the Jacques Jenny Professorship in Veterinary Orthopedics at the University of Pennsylvania.