September 8, 1910] 



NATURE 



321 



VETERINARY RESEARCH IN THE 

 TRANSVAAL. 



"T^HE present veterinary bacteriological laboratories of 

 ■'■ the Transvaal Department of Agriculture are situated 

 eight miles to the north of Pretoria, on a farm comprising 

 altogether some 2000 acres of land. They were ready for 

 occupation on October i, 1908, but, before this time, 

 research in South Africa had to be conducted under less 

 favourable conditions. In 1898, a three-room building of 

 wood and iron lined with brick formed the laboratory, and 

 the equipment of this was " sadly deficient." Calf vaccine 

 lymph was made here, but the preparation was suspended 

 when the late war broke out in the latter part of 1899. In 

 1901, the laboratory, after having been used during the 

 war as a stable, had now added to it a rinderpest station 

 for the manufacture of serum, and by 1905 it had grown 

 into a heterogeneous collection of buildings, mostly con- 

 structed from old wood and iron, from buildings destroyed 

 during; the war. Xof only were the buildings unsuitable. 



The present building comprises some three dozen 

 different rooms, suitably fitted, each for its own particular 

 object. 



In the pathological laboratory, 1362 specimens were re- 

 ported on in one year, and here is studied the histological 

 pathology of various diseases, especially horse-sickness. 

 East Coast fever, and other piroplasmoses. 



In the zoological laboratory, the study of the entozoa of 

 the sheep is a matter of great practical importance to the 

 sheep-farmer. In another room, mallein, tuberculin, 

 quarter-evil vaccine, and pleuro-pneumonia cultures are 

 prepared. Three rooms are reserved exclusively for the 

 preparation of rabies vaccine. In yet another room, the 

 vaccine for blue-tongue and a horse-sickness serum are pre- 

 pared. Of the former, 200,000 doses, and of the latter 1000 

 tubes, are sent out annually. 



An entirelv separate building is used for the preparation 

 of calf lymph ; three-quarters of a million tubes have been 

 sent out into all parts of S. Africa during the last two 

 years. The laboratory is evidently splendidly equipped with 



ry B.^cceriologic.^1 Laborau 



; Onderstepoort, i'retori 



but they were also unhealthy, enteric fever constantly 

 occurring among the staff, so that in 1906 it was decided to 

 establish the present laboratories. 



It may be of interest to consider the work done in these 

 earlier years. 



In 1896, rinderpest devastated S. Africa, thousands of 

 cattle dying, and preventive inoculation was introduced. 

 In 1S98, at the old laboratory at Daspoort, calf vaccine 

 lymph was made to vaccinate the Kaffirs when a serious 

 outbreak of small-pox took place among them. In 1901-3, 

 rinderpest serum was made in the Daspoort laboratory. 

 In 1905, experiments were made which eventually resulted 

 in the discovery of a serum for inoculating mules against 

 horse-sickness. In 1902, at the close of the war, the intro- 

 duction of East Coast fever, a new and devastating disease, 

 took place ; the disease was, however, at once studied, and 

 means devised for preventing its spread. 



A consideration of this wo;-k, then, shows what a prac- 

 tical character there had always been in the research work 

 in the old laboratory, and we shall see that this is equally 

 true of the new ones. 



its centrifugal room, still room, serum store, animal room, 

 operating theatre, post-mortem hall, museums, lecture 

 rooms, S:c., but we note one important omission, viz., a 

 library, of which there is no account. 



This, the commemoration publication, besides the his- 

 torical account of the laboratory which we have abstracted, 

 contains five papers. The first is by Dr. Arnold Theiler, 

 the Government veterinary bacteriologist, and is on the very 

 interesting and important subject of " Immunity in Tropical 

 and Sub-tropical Diseases." 



He gives an excellent and concise statement of the whole 

 question. This article is worthy of a place in a commemora- 

 tion number, but as regards the other papers, while in 

 themselves good pieces of research work, there is no special 

 reason for their appearance here. We miss any general 

 account of 'the animal diseases of S. ."Vfrica, rinderpest, 

 horse-sickness, heart-water, and so on ; and we should have 

 welcomed a general account and summary of the piro- 

 plasmoses and the mortality due to them. Nor do we find 

 any general account of ticks, and the methods taken to 

 combat them. We should have welcomed also a summary 



NO. 2132, VOL. 84] 



