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Gazette
Letters ONE HEALTH
History of One Health and One Medicine WE have followed with interest the discussion in Veterinary Record on One Health/One Medicine, and feel that it would enhance the recent deliberations on the origins of the concept to recall the contribution made by William Weipers following his appointment as director of Glasgow veterinary school on its amalgamation with the University of Glasgow in 1949. We quote from a transcript of a video interview of Sir William with Peter McKenzie from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow Archive Collection: ‘Following the second Loveday Report, there had been some discussion whether the University of Glasgow would take in the old Veterinary College or start up a new school in opposition. When it was accepted that the College would be part of the University of Glasgow, Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal of the University of Glasgow disagreed with Sir William Weipers, at that time Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Veterinary College over the degree awarded and the location of the new school. Hetherington would have liked the degree to be in Veterinary Science and be a part of the Science Faculty with
preclinical classes in Gilmorehill and clinical departments to be built at Auchincruive in the grounds of the Agricultural College. He did not wish to hear the sound of cattle lowing on Gilmorehill. Weipers was anxious that the school should be part of the Faculty of Medicine; he felt that “we are a science but we are what I call practitioners of Medical Science. We practise in the same way but in a different species from the medicals who practise human medicine but both lean heavily on Medical Science”.’ The subsequent history is well documented. Weipers was a remarkable judge of ability and appointed an array of talented interdisciplinary vets and non-vets who went on to make several enormous contributions to One Medicine. They included Sir James Black, Nobel Laureate for Medicine in 1988, for his work on H2 antagonists for the treatment of gastric ulcers and beta-blockers for hypertension in man, and Bill Jarrett who, with his discovery of feline leukaemia virus and, with Saveria Campo, the oncogenic potential of papillomaviruses, changed our perception of the causes of cancer, which led to the discovery of human retroviruses, including HIV and the development of human cervical cancer vaccines. More recently, the close medicalveterinary collaboration initiated by Max Murray and Peter Kennedy, in the latter’s laboratory in the veterinary school, has resulted in the development of oral
complexed melarsoprol for CNS sleeping sickness – a major advance that has great promise for obviating many of the severe drawbacks of currently administered intravenous melarsoprol. Recent major infrastructure developments at the veterinary school, which have highlighted its commitment to One Health/One Medicine, have been the Henry Wellcome Building for Comparative Medical Sciences (2004) and the new MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (2014), the director of which, Massimo Palmarini, is a veterinary graduate. Both of these institutions closely integrate medical and veterinary research. The whole history of the close links between veterinary and human medicine in Glasgow is told in the recent publication ‘Glasgow Veterinary School 1862-2012’. Within the University of Glasgow, these links have been formalised by the establishment of the College of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences. William Weipers was a trailblazer not only for Glasgow, but for elsewhere in the UK, and internationally. Max Murray, Peter Holmes, Norman Wright, Oswald Jarrett, Peter Kennedy, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Garscube Estate, Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH doi: 10.1136/vr.g1801 March 1, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 227
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 21, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
History of One Health and One Medicine Max Murray, Peter Holmes, Norman Wright, Oswald Jarrett and Peter Kennedy Veterinary Record 2014 174: 227
doi: 10.1136/vr.g1801 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/9/227.2
These include:
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Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
Gazette
Letters ONE HEALTH
History of One Health and One Medicine WE have followed with interest the discussion in Veterinary Record on One Health/One Medicine, and feel that it would enhance the recent deliberations on the origins of the concept to recall the contribution made by William Weipers following his appointment as director of Glasgow veterinary school on its amalgamation with the University of Glasgow in 1949. We quote from a transcript of a video interview of Sir William with Peter McKenzie from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow Archive Collection: ‘Following the second Loveday Report, there had been some discussion whether the University of Glasgow would take in the old Veterinary College or start up a new school in opposition. When it was accepted that the College would be part of the University of Glasgow, Sir Hector Hetherington, Principal of the University of Glasgow disagreed with Sir William Weipers, at that time Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Veterinary College over the degree awarded and the location of the new school. Hetherington would have liked the degree to be in Veterinary Science and be a part of the Science Faculty with
preclinical classes in Gilmorehill and clinical departments to be built at Auchincruive in the grounds of the Agricultural College. He did not wish to hear the sound of cattle lowing on Gilmorehill. Weipers was anxious that the school should be part of the Faculty of Medicine; he felt that “we are a science but we are what I call practitioners of Medical Science. We practise in the same way but in a different species from the medicals who practise human medicine but both lean heavily on Medical Science”.’ The subsequent history is well documented. Weipers was a remarkable judge of ability and appointed an array of talented interdisciplinary vets and non-vets who went on to make several enormous contributions to One Medicine. They included Sir James Black, Nobel Laureate for Medicine in 1988, for his work on H2 antagonists for the treatment of gastric ulcers and beta-blockers for hypertension in man, and Bill Jarrett who, with his discovery of feline leukaemia virus and, with Saveria Campo, the oncogenic potential of papillomaviruses, changed our perception of the causes of cancer, which led to the discovery of human retroviruses, including HIV and the development of human cervical cancer vaccines. More recently, the close medicalveterinary collaboration initiated by Max Murray and Peter Kennedy, in the latter’s laboratory in the veterinary school, has resulted in the development of oral
complexed melarsoprol for CNS sleeping sickness – a major advance that has great promise for obviating many of the severe drawbacks of currently administered intravenous melarsoprol. Recent major infrastructure developments at the veterinary school, which have highlighted its commitment to One Health/One Medicine, have been the Henry Wellcome Building for Comparative Medical Sciences (2004) and the new MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (2014), the director of which, Massimo Palmarini, is a veterinary graduate. Both of these institutions closely integrate medical and veterinary research. The whole history of the close links between veterinary and human medicine in Glasgow is told in the recent publication ‘Glasgow Veterinary School 1862-2012’. Within the University of Glasgow, these links have been formalised by the establishment of the College of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences. William Weipers was a trailblazer not only for Glasgow, but for elsewhere in the UK, and internationally. Max Murray, Peter Holmes, Norman Wright, Oswald Jarrett, Peter Kennedy, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Glasgow, Garscube Estate, Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH doi: 10.1136/vr.g1801 March 1, 2014 | Veterinary Record | 227
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 21, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
History of One Health and One Medicine Max Murray, Peter Holmes, Norman Wright, Oswald Jarrett and Peter Kennedy Veterinary Record 2014 174: 227
doi: 10.1136/vr.g1801 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/174/9/227.2
These include:
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
