Public Health and the Veterinary Profession

(pictured above: Dr. Andrew MacNabb, OVC DVM 1923, and OVC’s fourth principal [now called Dean]. | Photo Credit: C.A.V. Barker Collection, Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library)

Early links shape the Ontario Veterinary College’s role in public health expertise

These words are from a letter C.H. Harris (OVC DVM 1923) wrote home to his mother shortly after he began studies at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in October of 1919. The roommate he describes is none other than Dr. Andrew MacNabb, a fellow 1923 graduate who would go on to become the OVC’s fourth principal [now called Dean]. 2023 marks a century since his graduation and a timely opportunity to reflect on his legacy.

After graduating in 1923, MacNabb did not follow many of his fellow graduates into veterinary practice. Rather, he pursued a career in public health - an experience that would have a tremendous influence on OVC and more broadly on the veterinary profession.

MacNabb was appointed a bacteriologist for the Ontario Department of Health in 1924. By 1928, he was named Director for its Division of Laboratories. A skilled administrator, he established numerous branch laboratories throughout the province, in addition to overseeing more than 130 employees at the central laboratory in Toronto.

Although primarily in administration, MacNabb found time for research and published on a variety of topics including syphilis, undulant fever, psittacosis, and paratyphoid fever, as well as bacterial studies on the tubercule bacillus and sanitary and sterilization practices for the home.

The relationship between veterinary medicine and public health was well-understood by the veterinary profession very early in its history. Dr. Charles McGilvray, OVC’s third principal and MacNabb’s predecessor, was a keen advocate of the central role that veterinarians would play in public health.

McGilvray advocated for OVC to take on more research and extension roles in veterinary medicine to share their animal and public health expertise more broadly with society. For example, by the mid-1920s OVC provided diagnostic testing services for a wide variety of diseases. There was much more to do, and it would be MacNabb who would be tasked with shaping OVC’s wider role in the post-Second World War period following McGilvray’s retirement.

MacNabb was appointed principal of OVC in 1945 and immediately drew on his considerable administrative experience. He made many revisions to OVC’s curriculum and appointed several new faculty members, renewing ties with both the Ontario Agricultural College and the University of Toronto. New areas of study included histology and embryology, virology, zoology and radiology, as well as lectures in public health and hygiene.

During his tenure, he also expanded OVC’s teaching and research facilities and its extension services.

MacNabb unfortunately developed cancer and succumbed to the disease in 1952. His legacy of firmly establishing various aspects of public health and extension into OVC would be carried on in the decades to come in the form of programs such as Ecosystem Approaches to Health, the Master of Public Health program, as well as One Health.

This story was originally published in the Crest Magazine (Summer 2023)