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A short history of veterinary education in Australia: the 120‐year transition from education for a trade to education for a profession

World Veterinary Year in 2011 celebrates the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the first modern veterinary school at Lyon in France. To put veterinary education in Australia in its historical context, the veterinary school at Lyon was established nine years before the British had discovered the east coast of Australia in 1770, and 27 years before a shipment of convicts transported from overcrowded gaols in England had arrived in Sydney in 1788. This paper discusses the development of veterinary education in Australia from that time to the present day.

In vitro evaluation of canine leukocytes radiolabeled in whole blood with 99mTc stannous colloid

INTRODUCTION Technetium-99m stannous colloid ((99m)TcSnC)-labeled leukocytes are used to investigate a variety of inflammatory diseases in human medicine. The present study investigates the in vitro behavior of canine leukocytes labeled in whole blood with (99m)TcSnC. METHODS Blood samples from 10 healthy dogs were labeled with (99m)TcSnC using a standard procedure. The distribution of radioactivity among blood components (plasma, leukocyte layers and erythrocytes) was measured following separation of the radiolabeled samples across Histopaque density gradients. Phagocytic function of labeled and unlabeled leukocytes was estimated using zymosan particles. Labeling retention by leukocytes was determined at 1, 3, 4 and 7 h postlabeling. RESULTS The mean+/-standard error percentage of radioactivity associated with plasma, erythrocyte and leukocyte fractions was 2.0+/-0.21%, 55.5+/-0.60% and 42.5+/-0.54%, respectively (the last comprising 70.2+/-0.83% in polymorphonuclear leukocytes and 29.8+/-0.83% in mononuclear leukocytes). Labeled canine leukocytes had a phagocytic activity of 91.3+/-0.28% (control, 91.7+/-0.26%). The radiolabeled canine leukocytes retained 94.1+/-0.30% of radioactivity at 7 h postlabeling. CONCLUSIONS Radiolabeling of canine leukocytes in whole blood with (99m)TcSnC has minor adverse effect on their phagocytic function. The radiolabeled canine leukocytes retained a large percentage of radioactivity for at least 7 h postlabeling.

Neonatal viral diarrhoeas

Diarrhoea continues to be one of the more common and important causes of economic loss in young animals (Anon 1978). Virus particles identified as rotaviruses, coronaviruses, calci-like viruses, astroviruses, parvoviruses, and several others have been detected by direct electron microscopy of ultracentrifuged samples of diarrhoeic faeces from young animals and human infants over the past 20 years. Despite numerous studies on the many aetiological agents associated with neonatal viral diarrhoea in recent years (Tzipori 1985), the challenge for today’s new veterinary graduate is similar to that faced by Bill Snowdon when he graduated from the University of Sydney in 1948. When investigating outbreaks of diarrhoea in calves, piglets, foals, kids, and lambs in the field, or in various species of wildlife kept in zoos, it is still difficult to know which bacteria, viruses or protozoa are responsible for the diarrhoea (Blood and Radostits 1989).