EDITORIAL

A Centennial Celebration in Philadelphia

Remarks made by Donald R . Howurd, Chairman of the Board of Regents, American College of Vrterinury Surgeons, at the Centennial Celebration Reception and Dinner, February 15, 1984.

Three years ago, Dr. Mark Allam met with the Board of Regents of the ACVS to invite us to hold our 19th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. We are pleased to participate in this the centennial celebration of the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. Our College has many roots in this institution, and, indirectly, to the founding fathers of the University and nation. Benjamin Franklin served as the first Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. We share the pride that this institution has in the uniqueness of its beginning. The “one medicine concept” is well known in our respective medical professions. The University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine was born with a foundation in medicine, in contrast to the other 26 schools in the United States that had their beginnings in agriculture.

The concept of one medicine began in 1779 with the founding of the University of Pennsylvania, which was the first to be called a “University” in the USA. A Department of Medicine was included from the time of its founding-the original medical college was a part of the Academy and College of Philadelphia, from which the University developed.

As early as 1792, Dr. James Meese, physician and epidemiologist promoted interest in the dreadful disease that ravaged both man and animals-rabies. He recognized its zoonotic relation- ship. Soon after, in 1807, Dr. Benjamin Rush made an impassioned plea to his medical students during a lecture to promote the study of animal diseases for their comparative relationships. Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, offered in a letter to the University community on November 2nd of the same year, a set of reasons why people should be concerned with the study of animal diseases. His reasons and positions have not been improved upon since. In his words, animal diseases require study because:

. . . the matter in which the remote and proximate causes of disease produce their morbid effects, being the same as in the human body, and most medicines producing in them and in us [is] nearly a similar operation.

Our modern day vision makers, Drs. Archibald of Canada, Brinker of Michigan, Churchill of Maryland, Rudy of Ohio, and Allam and Jenny of Pennsylvania, formed the committee to establish the American College of Veterinary Surgeons here in Philadelphia on December 16, 1965. Dr. Jenny served as the College’s first President and Dr. Allam as the first Chairman of the Board of Regents. There has never been a time in the history of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons that a surgeon from or at the University of Pennsylvania has not held a major leadership role in our organization. That is history.

So, Dr. Allam, Dean Marshak, friends, colleagues, and guests, it is fitting that we find ourselves here honoring the institution that from the evidence of its past will always be part of our future.

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