Page 2 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 1

OND
ERSTEPOORT 100
Early days (1908-1927)
Background and circumstances leading to Tthe establishment of a new institute
he Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), as it is currently known, is internationally re- nowned for the pioneering research it has conducted during the century of its existence since its first laboratory – very impressive in
those days and called an ‘Extravagant Palace of Science’ by some – was commissioned in 1908. But let us first consider where its roots lay.
Veterinary research in southern Africa had its origin in the worst outbreak of animal disease this country has ever ex-
perienced, i.e. the rinderpest (RP) pandemic is now the Republic of South Africa in 1896. The Cape Colony, a British colony, had inter alia reacted by eliciting the assistance of the world famous Robert Koch whereas the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek appointed the dynamic young Swiss veterinarian, Arnold Theiler, who had been in the coun- try since 1891, as ‘gouvernements-veearts’ (state veterinarian) on 11 May 1896 with the specific task of combating the disease.
Theiler established a field laboratory in the Marico district near the Botswana border in 1896 where he and H. Watkins- Pitchford, who had been appointed princi-
2 pal veterinary officer in Natal, also a British
that entered what
“Veterinary research in
southern Africa had its origin in the worst outbreak of animal disease this country has ever experienced, i.e. the rinderpest (RP) pandemic that entered what is now the Republic of South Africa in 1896.”
A. Theiler (left) and H. Watkins-Pitchford (right) at Groot Marico (with a ZAR guard) where they were investigating rinderpest in 1896.Theiler’s severed left hand is obscured in this photograph
Colony, in 1896, in an amazingly short period of 6 weeks developed the essentials of what proved to be the first really effec- tive immunization process against RP, a serum-virus type of vaccine.
Theiler then moved to the farm Water- val, several kilometres to the north of Pre- toria, where, at a laboratory established at Eberhard’s Hotel, most of his further work on the improvement of the new vaccine was
Rinderpest, which entered the ‘Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek’ and Cape Colony in 1896, is highly fatal to cattle
PART 1
Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute: General History
1908-2008
Years