SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL VETERINARY MUSEUM

HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM

The South African National Veterinary Museum (SANVM) is an initiative to preserve the history of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), and of veterinary science in South Africa. The museum was started many decades ago and its drastic improvement was selected as a project by the History Committee of the South African Veterinary Association to be completed for the centenary celebrations of the OVI in 2008.

MUSEUM BUILDING AND CONTENTS

The museum currently consists of 6 rooms in a historic 1908 complex destined to become a students’ hostel.

Old Students’ hostel
Mr Tonie du Bruyn, photographer, who established the 1st museum

Panels in western Exhibition Room

The history of veterinary science started with the development of ‘ethno-veterinary medicine’ by the earliest hunter-gatherer humans.

Remarkable progress with veterinary medicine was made in the Middle East and Egypt, followed by the Greeks and Romans. Stagnating in the Middle Ages, veterinary medicine became a science with the establishment of the first veterinary schools in Europe, led by France at Lyon and Maisons Alfort.

The first formal veterinary school was established in 1762 in Lyon.

In South Africa Duncan Hutcheon, colonial field veterinarian in the Cape Colony, was first to conduct meaningful disease control and early research. His assistant Jotello Soga, of mixed Xhosa and Scottish stock, was the first South African to qualify as a veterinarian.

Dr Duncan Hutcheon was the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon of the Cape Colony. He was the first to describe Bluetongue and instrumental in the control of rinderpest.

The undisputed father of local veterinary research was Sir Arnold Theiler, the founder of Onderstepoort. He conducted pioneering research on devastating diseases such as rinderpest, East Coast fever and African horsesickness. He was also the driving force behind erecting a state of the art laboratory in 1908, later to become internationally famous as Onderstepoort. Theiler was also the father of veterinary education in South Africa, his Onderstepoort campus serving to accommodate a veterinary faculty in 1920. The Faculty’s first students qualified in 1924.

Dr Arnold Theiler with a bottle of the Rinderpest vaccine and an image of the Theileria parva, the cause of East Coast fever.

The main building of the Veterinary Bacteriological Laboratory at Onderstepoort.
Dr Arnold Theiler with the first student graduates in 1924
Dr Arnold Theiler during the morning routine of inspecting the animals.

Panels in eastern Exhibition Room

In those early days Onderstepoort had to be self-sufficient in the production of vaccines against the many infectious diseases prevalent in African countries. Vaccine production therefore became one of the Institute’s primary functions. Its evolution is illustrated on one of the panels.

Vaccine production at Onderstepoort was consolidated into a single factory built in the 1960’s. This is today known as Onderstepoort Biological Products Pty. Ltd.

Regulatory veterinary services predate fundamental veterinary research in South Africa. The primary function of government-employed veterinarians like Wiltshire, Stockman and their successors was indeed to statutorily control the many devastating transmissible animal diseases they encountered. The evolution of veterinary services is depicted on one of the panels in terms of leading personalities involved.

Most South African veterinarians now practise privately. The first South African veterinary graduate to venture directly into practice was Jack Boswell who graduated in 1935. Private practice burgeoned over the years, veterinarians now serving every conceivable niche of animal health in this country. Also featuring is the evolvement of the local pharmaceutical industry indispensable to the veterinary profession and animal health.

The development of the organised veterinary profession, culminating in the South African Veterinary Association representing the majority of the locally employed veterinarians, is a fascinating tale. Although the South African Veterinary Council, a statutory body responsible for registration of veterinarians, animal health technicians, veterinary technologists and veterinary nurses, had a ‘difficult birth’, it became a prestigious body.

Some of the instruments on display in Room 1 of the museum
Items on display in Room 2 of the museum

Cabinets in eastern & western Exhibition Rooms

The four cabinets contain a variety of memorabilia such as veterinary textbooks, microscopes, veterinary vaccines and remedies and a wide assortment of instruments.

The oldest microscope was manufactured in The Netherlands, ca. 1750, and was probably based on one designed by A van Leeuwenhoek.

A monocular brass microscope, microscope in travelling case and lenses
Bottles with blood and rinderpest immune serum and a container for compacting red blood cells
Cabinet with old instruments

The arsenic dip testing kit used to measure the concentration of arsenic in dip tanks during the eventually successful East Coast fever eradication campaign, is of considerable historic importance. This also applies to the bottle containing immune serum against rinderpest used in an early immunisation process.

Also exhibited is a wide variety of anachronistic veterinary instruments used in surgical, obstetrical and dental procedures, such as sets of firing irons used for pin- and line-firing of horses with chronically inflamed joints.

Theiler exhibition

Two rooms have been dedicated to the memory of Sir Arnold Theiler. One, furnished to resemble a waiting room, contains an illustrated timeline summarising Theiler’s career.

The other room is a replica of Theiler’s office, containing original furniture and other memorabilia such as: his bookcase and personal books; desk and office equipment, including an old- fashioned telephone and record book with entries in his handwriting.

The waiting room (Winged arm chair was donated to Mrs Theiler by the staff in 1927)
Replica of Theiler’s office with original furniture & record

Old-fashioned laboratory

All items exhibited were originally used in the Onderstepoort laboratories and include: a laboratory bench with basin and gas pipes, an ‘ancient’ elegant, enclosed, double pan chemical balance; a hot air-heated copper oven.

Old-fashioned consulting room/clinic

These exhibits were selected to demonstrate the type of equipment used in the early stages of small animal veterinary practice in South Africa. They include: an old wooden surgery/dissection table, a wash basin and diagrammatic charts of the anatomy of the dog and the cat.

An original laboratory bench with porcelain  basin and brass taps from the “Old Main Building” with equipment used in the histo-pathology laboratory
A part of the consulting room/clinic with a wooden operating table and cabinet with instruments, anaesthetic machine and balance

Visitors to the museum are most welcome. Prior arrangement with the curator, Dr Antoinette van Schalkwyk is essential.

VISITING HOURS:
Weekdays: 08h00 – 15h00
Weekends and public holidays: Specific time slots arranged with curator

HOW TO GET TO THE MUSEUM
Geographical coordinates are 25° 39′ 2″ South, 28° 11′ 3″ East
(open with Google Maps)