Of pills and potions and poisons

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1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology, pharmacy, physiology, toxicology, Wellington

Making up supplies of the new wonder drug, penicillin, in the pathology department’s sterile solutions unit in 1949. In the 1960s the new pharmacy school took over ‘the factory’. Please get in touch if you can identify the woman in this photo! Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Prime Minister’s Department photograph, Box-184-007, S16-102a.

The University of Otago’s interest in pills and potions and poisons dates back to its earliest years. In his first annual report on the university laboratory, in 1875, chemistry professor James Black listed all the analyses he had carried out for the public and local officials. They ranged widely, from food and drink he tested for adulteration to coal and minerals and cement he tested for quality. Also on the list were some samples which suggest intriguing mysteries: in June 1874 Dr Niven of Roxburgh sent medicine, pills, a piece of tart and some lung balsam for testing, while in October Dr Cole of Tokomairiro sent urine and other samples to be tested for poison. Toxicology was thus at the very origin of Otago’s work in the pharmacology field.

It was the establishment of the medical school, though, which led to the first employment of a specialist in drugs. In 1883 John Macdonald was appointed lecturer in materia medica, as pharmacology was then known. The first medical school historian, Dudley Carmalt Jones, described Macdonald as ‘a big, handsome Scotsman of a striking presence …. a man who never quarrelled, and never did anything unethical’. As well as teaching students about drugs, he gave clinical teaching as one of the Dunedin Hospital honorary staff, his specialty being skin diseases. Macdonald taught materia medica according to ‘Edinburgh tradition’, with long lists of drug preparations to be memorised. Students also learned the practical skills of pharmacy, including the visual recognition of drugs and the making of pills, ointments and potions. These skills were taught at the hospital by its dispenser. The first to teach medical students their pharmacy skills was Dr John Brown, ‘a dear old eccentric teacher’ who was hospital dispenser for many years. This well-known character was apparently quite lenient with the students, but his successor refused to sign them off as ‘fully competent’, only recording that they had ‘regularly attended’; he also suggested that ‘grave danger’ could be avoided if they learned the theory of materia medica before tackling the making of medicines.

Although the early pharmacology lecturers focused on teaching rather than research, there were some interesting studies taking place around the university. As I wrote in an earlier post on this blog, New Zealand’s first home-grown medical graduate, Ledingham Christie, was awarded an MD degree in 1890 for his research into the toxicity of the tutu plant. In time-honoured mad scientist fashion, after observing the effects of the tutu berry on cats, roosters and rabbits he tested it on himself, taking a month to fully recover! Otago’s first physiology professor, John Malcolm, began working on tutin soon after his 1905 arrival, together with research assistant and hospital physician Frank Fitchett. Their authoritative study On the Physiological Action of Tutin was published in 1909. The following year Fitchett – a local lad who had returned to Dunedin after completing the final years of his medical training in Edinburgh – became pharmacology lecturer. Medical students enjoyed his lectures, even though they took place at 8am, for he filled them with a great fund of entertaining anecdotes from his years of medical practice. In 1920 Fitchett was promoted to be part-time professor of clinical medicine and therapeutics. He visited medical schools in England and Scotland to check out their pharmacology programmes; Otago needed to adapt its teaching to meet the changing requirements of the General Medical Council. Practice in hospital dispensing – ‘condemned’ as unnecessary by the council – was dropped from Otago’s medical syllabus and replaced with a practical class, modelled on Edinburgh’s, in the writing and analysing of prescriptions, and observation of the effects of drugs.

In 1940, after Fitchett retired, Otago had the good fortune to recruit the brilliant Horace Smirk to a new full-time professorial post in medicine. He was a Manchester graduate who worked in London and Vienna before becoming pharmacology professor in Cairo; he continued his pioneering work on drug treatment for high blood pressure in Dunedin. The new professor started out with a boosted staff of lecturers and researchers and within a few years had added further to his team. It was largely in honour of Smirk’s work that Otago received a large grant from the Wellcome Trust in 1961 for a new research building. Smirk had ‘tremendous vitality’, recalls Fred Fastier, one of his pharmacology team (later a professor himself). His colleagues wondered if this had something to do with the enormous quantities of tea he consumed; was his ‘curiously strong brew’ converted into something special ‘by a process apparently acquired in the land of Egypt’? It didn’t, however, work the same way for them.

Meanwhile, the Medical Research Council set up a toxicology research unit at Otago in 1955. Frank Denz was recruited back from England to his home country as first director; with a team including chemist Jack Dacre he began work on food additives such as colouring agents, ‘chosen because they were in extensive use but had not had adequate toxicological assessment’. Denz also taught in the pathology department; after his death in 1960 a very small team carried on with toxicology research. In 1968 the MRC convinced Garth McQueen of the pharmacology department to become director of the unit; he was an Australian who came to Otago in 1954 to work on hypertension with Horace Smirk and stayed on as lecturer in clinical pharmacology. In 1964 McQueen established the New Zealand National Poisons Information Centre, inspired by Dacre’s observations during study leave in the United States. It started out as a one-man operation, run from the Dunedin Hospital Emergency Department, and grew into a busy standalone 24/7 public service with an enormous knowledge base; alongside it McQueen developed New Zealand’s Centre for Adverse Drug Reactions and the Intensive Medicines Monitoring Programme (IMMP). Developed in the wake of the thalidomide tragedy, these, too, provided important public services, recognised with dedicated government funding from 1982 (the IMMP closed in 2013 after losing funding).

Another important 1960s development started out in a very small way: in 1963 six students signed on for a new Otago pharmacy degree. Pharmacists had been pushing for higher education for decades. New Zealand had been registering pharmacists since 1881, requiring them to complete an apprenticeship and pass exams; various private colleges developed. In 1960 the profession finally succeeded in getting a new pharmacy diploma course underway at the Central Institute of Technology (CIT); the Otago degree course was intended for those destined for specialist positions as researchers, lecturers, hospital pharmacists or manufacturing pharmacists. Pharmacy academics were thin on the ground, so the vice-chancellor persuaded pharmacologist and ‘born optimist’ Fred Fastier to administer the new course. Two highly regarded local pharmacists – analytical and consulting chemist Roy Gardner and Dunedin Hospital chief pharmacist John Conroy – ‘came to the rescue’ and became part-time lecturers for the specialist pharmacy subjects. The old Dental School Annexe (next to what is now the Marples Building) was converted to provide specialised labs for the pharmacy programme and sterile solutions unit, which pharmacy took over from the pathology department. The sterile unit – better known as ‘the factory’ – had been manufacturing supplies, including solutions of penicillin and other drugs, for many years to sell around the country; the pathology professor had kept it going in the hope it would prove useful for a future pharmacy department.

Pharmacy student Alan McClintock and technician Sandra Barkman identifying ‘unknown’ chemical compounds in Rob McKeown’s pharmaceutical chemistry lab, c.1983. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit records, MS-4368/085, S16-669c.

There was plenty of demand for Otago pharmacy graduates and lots of interest in the course; the annual intake was quickly increased to 20 and in 1975 to 25. In 1971 Harry Taylor, who had been heading the CIT programme, became Otago’s first pharmacy professor. A 1981 retirement tribute noted that Taylor saw pharmacy flourish ‘in the most decrepit building in the university, with his administrative work performed in an office no bigger than a commodious cupboard’, but in 1985 it finally moved into better accommodation in the renovated Adams Building. The pharmacy programme was also renovated under energetic Canadian professor Donald Perrier, who introduced a more clinical focus to the degree, which was popular with students. The class continued to grow, taking its biggest jump in 1991; that year, following a long period of political wrangling, a degree became the minimum standard of entry to the pharmacy profession, the CIT course closed and all New Zealand pharmacy training shifted to Otago (from 1999 pharmacists could also qualify through the University of Auckland). The pharmacy department was upgraded to become the pharmacy school, with Peter Coville – affectionately known as Papa Smurf – as first dean.

While pharmacy developed its own postgraduate programmes and research, staff in pharmacology, psychology and several medical school clinical departments also continued a wide variety of research concerning pills and potions and poisons. Some of these had big consequences. In the 1970s McQueen and Otago paediatricians were among those who revealed the toxicity of popular antiseptic hexachlorophene on premature babies. It was widely used from the 1950s onwards in the fight against staph outbreaks in maternity hospitals, but carried its own dangers. Perhaps the most dramatic finding concerning prescribed drugs came through a group of young researchers at the Wellington campus in the late 1980s. Physicians Julian Crane and Richard Beasley and pharmacologist Carl Burgess, all from the medicine department, were suspicious that a popular asthma drug, fenoterol (marketed here as Berotec), might be contributing to an unexplained epidemic of asthma deaths. They asked epidemiologist Neil Pearce of the Wellington campus’s public health department to join them in a study. The results, published in the Lancet in 1989, were explosive, revealing an association between asthma deaths and fenoterol. As with many epidemiological studies, the findings proved controversial. The drug manufacturer, Boehringer Ingelheim, conducted a remarkable campaign to discredit the study, but they weren’t the only ones to dispute it: other researchers, including some of Otago’s own, also resisted suggestions that fenoterol was dangerous. Further studies confirmed the asthma research group’s findings and government subsidies for fenoterol were withdrawn; it was research which prevented many asthma deaths in New Zealand and around the world. From investigating suspicious lung balsams in the 1870s to uncovering dangerous asthma inhalers in the 1980s, we have many reasons to be grateful to Otago researchers.

Scientific women

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1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, botany, chemistry, home science, marine science, microbiology, physics, psychology, women, zoology

Winifred Betts, Otago’s first specialist botany lecturer. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Botany Department archives,  r.6461, S14-586a.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion recently about sexism in science. This has inspired me to write about some of the women academics who led the way for women in the sciences at Otago. Their path was not always easy, and for many decades the university was more willing to employ gifted women than to promote them, but they made important contributions to teaching and research and deserve better attention. Some have already appeared on this blog: marine biologist Betty Batham here; and Muriel Bell, Elizabeth Gregory and Marion Robinson all feature on this post about nutrition research. Today’s story, therefore, concentrates on some of Otago’s other women scientists.

Winifred (Winnie) Betts was Otago’s first botany lecturer, though it is telling that botany officially dated its beginning as an independent department from 1924, when her male successor, John Holloway, commenced as lecturer. Botany classes were taught from the university’s early years by the professor of natural science, later the professor of biology, but these men specialised in zoology rather than botany, and it was irksome having to teach both subjects to the growing student body. Recent zoology honours graduate Winifred Farnie was assistant lecturer in biology in 1917 and 1918, but in 1919, after some years of trying, biology professor William Benham managed to persuade the university council that it was time that botany had its own lecturer. Winnie Betts was just 25 years old when she commenced this new position at the beginning of 1920. Born in Moteuka, she was educated at Nelson College for Girls and the University of Otago, graduating BSc in 1916 and MSc in 1917. She then received a National Research Scholarship – one was awarded at each university each year. This provided her with an income of £100 a year along with lab expenses so she could carry out independent research. In 1919, at a lecture to an admittedly partisan audience in Nelson, distinguished botanist Leonard Cockayne described Betts as ‘the most brilliant woman scientist in New Zealand’. In December 1920 Winnie Betts married another brilliant Otago graduate, the mathematician Alexander Aitken. Aitken, whose studies were interrupted by war service (he was badly wounded at the Somme), was by then teaching at Otago Boys’ High School. This was an era when most women left paid employment when they married, so it is intriguing that Winnie Aitken continued working as botany lecturer for some years. That came to an end in December 1923, when the Aitkens moved to Scotland to further Alexander’s academic career (he eventually became professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh).

Several other women were appointed to the biological sciences between the wars; all had started out at Otago as outstanding students. Marion Fyfe became a zoology lecturer in 1921 and when Beryl Brewin joined her in 1936 women thereby accounted for two-thirds of the zoology academic staff! They remained to teach generations of Otago students: Fyfe retired in 1957 and ‘live wire’ Brewin in 1963. Both were by then senior lecturers and Fyfe, described as ‘the backbone’ of the zoology department, had acted as its head on some occasions. Ella Campbell became assistant lecturer in botany in 1937, leaving to become the first woman academic at Massey University in 1945. An expert on liverworts, she was made a Dame in 1997 for her contribution as ‘a pioneer in the field of university botanic research’. When Campbell left, Brenda Slade (later Brenda Shore) became assistant lecturer in botany; she had just finished a BSc in the department. She later took leave to complete a PhD at Cambridge in her specialist field of leaf development, then returned to Otago, eventually retiring as associate professor in 1982. Two other biology students of that generation returned to Otago after overseas study and research. One was the aforementioned Betty Batham, who returned with a Cambridge PhD in 1950 to become first director of the Portobello Marine Biology Station, newly taken over by the university. Another was Ann Wylie, recruited back to Otago’s botany department in 1961 to take responsibility for teaching in the rapidly-developing field of cytology and genetics. Like her colleague Brenda Shore, with whom she had first taught in the botany department in 1945 when lecturer John Holloway became ill, Wylie eventually rose to the status of associate professor, retiring in 1987. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Ann Wylie, who is still active and sharp-witted in her nineties. She recalls that women were well accepted in zoology and botany and she did not experience prejudice, though she also notes that women lecturers behaved as ‘honorary men’; it was they who had to adapt rather than the men. There was a strong sense of collegiality between women academics from various departments and they often socialised together.

Agnes Blackie, photographed around the 1960s, at the end of her long career as a physics lecturer. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, c/nE5302/11A, S16-521e.

The physical sciences weren’t so welcoming of women staff in this period. The school of mines and departments of geology, mathematics and chemistry remained resolutely male until later in the twentieth century. Indeed, the only woman academic in the physical sciences at Otago for many decades was Agnes Blackie in physics. She was appointed assistant lecturer in the department in 1919, eventually retiring as senior lecturer in 1958, though she continued teaching part-time for some years after that. The petite Blackie, who fell in love with physics as an Otago undergraduate, stood out in this largely male domain. Long-serving physics technician Stan Hughes, who started in the mid-1920s, recalled: ‘In the distance I saw this schoolgirl who later turned out to be Miss Agnes Blackie …. Agnes was very quiet with very thin features and my first impression was that a couple of mutton pies would do her the world of good’. In her early years, working with students sometimes older than herself (including returned servicemen), she had to endure considerable teasing, but was a gifted teacher who earned the affection and respect of generations of students, especially those who struggled with physics. She taught a range of students in addition to those specialising in physics, such as physiotherapy students learning about electricity and radiation, music students studying acoustics and home science students learning about household electricity and appliances, energy and calories, ventilation and humidity. Many a future doctor or dentist only made it through their compulsory physics course thanks to Blackie’s helpful teaching.

Not all of Otago’s pioneering women scientists were home-grown. Englishwomen Winifred Boys-Smith and Helen Rawson were the founding staff of the new home science school, whose courses commenced in 1911. Both had completed the natural science tripos at Cambridge but were unable to obtain degrees because they were women. Boys-Smith was Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first female professor and Rawson succeeded her in the chair of home science. Otago chemistry professor James Black, by then in his seventies, had his doubts about these women’s scientific abilities. The first two home science degree students later recalled that when they progressed ‘from Professor Black’s Chemistry to take Applied Chemistry under Miss Rawson, they were informed in no indefinite words as to his grave doubts of Miss Rawson’s knowledge of things chemical. “A fine lassie, but is she sound on the soda-ammonia process? I’ll put it down on paper for her,” said the dear old man’. Rawson’s ‘brilliant career’ at Cambridge and London evidently counted for nothing to him. Home science did, to some extent, segregate capable women from the ‘pure’ science courses, but it also offered them opportunities. The degree students took advanced courses in chemistry, and many went on to become school teachers in the pure sciences as well as home economics. Some became highly-regarded researchers and academics, either overseas (Neige Todhunter is a good example) or in New Zealand (such as Elizabeth Gregory and Marion Robinson, mentioned above).

Helen Thomson (centre back) teaching a laboratory class on the chemistry of the household at the School of Home Science in 1936. Thomson was one of numerous women who made an academic career in science through the school. After completing undergraduate and master’s degrees there, she was appointed lecturer in 1931 and remained on staff for 30 years, taking leave for overseas research. She graduated with a PhD in textile chemistry from Leeds University in 1947. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Consumer and Applied Science records, 97-081/4, S16-521a.

Another English import was Betty Bernardelli, who arrived at Otago in 1948 and took charge of the psychology laboratory (then part of the philosophy department). She had qualifications from Oxford and Cambridge, and had been officer in charge of psychological testing in the vocational advice service of the Royal Air Force during the war. She came to New Zealand with her husband Harro Bernadelli, who became lecturer in the economics department; in 1961 they left Otago for posts at the University of Auckland. The appointment of Bernardelli, a married woman, represented progress; an earlier generation of women academics had been single on appointment and mostly resigned if they married (a notable Otago example was home science professor Helen Rawson, whose academic career ended on her marriage to geology professor Noel Benson in 1923). It would be many years, however, before most people welcomed the advent of married women on the academic staff. Margaret Loutit came from Australia to Otago in 1956, when her husband John Loutit was appointed lecturer in the microbiology department. Already armed with an MSc, she obtained part-time work as a botany demonstrator and then microbiology lecturer while working on a PhD. As the working mother of young children she experienced considerable criticism, often from other women (notably the wives of other academic staff). Her salary was mostly absorbed in paying for private childcare; there were no crèche facilities at that time. However, her hard work was rewarded with the completion of her PhD in 1966 and in the following year she became a full-time staff member. Margaret Loutit was a gifted teacher and productive researcher in soil and water microbiology; she also made important contributions to university administration. She was promoted to a personal chair in 1981. John Loutit had become a professor in 1970, so they had the then rare status of ‘professorial spouses’.

There were other scientific women who held academic posts in the medical school: noted researchers Marianne Bielschowsky and Barbara Heslop, for example. However, there isn’t room to do justice to their achievements here, so I’ll have to save those for another time …

Otago’s pioneering women scientists – some of whom ended their careers not so very long ago – achieved remarkable things in the face of considerable difficulties. In proving the capability of women in the academic world of science they made things a little easier for those who followed and I am delighted to be able to pay tribute to them here. Do you have any stories to share of women in science at Otago?

Building the sciences

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1970s, 2010s, biochemistry, chemistry, human nutrition, mathematics, microbiology, physics

Construction underway on the Science I and biochemistry buildings, around 1970. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

With work now underway on a major redevelopment of the Science I building, it seems a good time to look back at the beginnings of this and the four large science buildings which neighbour it: Science II (like Science I, occupied by chemistry and human nutrition), Science III (physics, maths and statistics and the science library), the biochemistry building and the microbiology building.

These buildings were part of a major expansion of the university campus during the 1960s and 1970s, necessary to cater for rapidly rising student numbers. Growth was particularly evident in the science departments, which were straining at the seams in their original locations (now known as the registry and geology buildings). The Interim Science Building (discussed in an earlier blog post), provided some extra space from 1965, but much more was needed. In 1960 there were 300 students studying in the science faculty, by 1970 there were 1420 and by 1977, when the last of the five buildings was completed, there were 1663 science students. Meanwhile, moving microbiology and biochemistry into new buildings provided more space in the medical school, which also had to cater for a growing roll.

Development began with the demolition of existing buildings in the block bounded by Cumberland, St David, Castle and Union streets, which once accommodated around 100 low-cost dwellings, crowded together along little alleyways. In late 1968 construction commenced on the first new building, then known as the chemistry phase I building, with the department moving in early in 1971. Science I, as it is now called, was designed by Ministry of Works architects in light and dark tones of grey to ‘blend in’ with the older university buildings. Next out of the ground was the biochemistry building, designed by Allingham, Harrison and Partners as a home for this rapidly growing department, previously squeezed into the Lindo Ferguson Building with much of the medical school. Next was the chemistry research building (Science II), which adjoined the first two buildings on the east, along Castle Street. Designed by John Aimers of Mason and Wales, this ten-storey building towered over the campus; it was occupied in 1973.

Special attention was paid to the appearance of the fourth building in the complex, the microbiology building, designed by architectural firm Miller, White and Dunn. ‘We are taking particular care with the external treatment of the façade and the over-all form of the building’, explained E.A. Dews, the head of university works and services. ‘We want it to look a particularly attractive building since it is to be the focal point for the approach to the university’. There was a plan at the time to make a road from this point of Cumberland Street to the clock tower, which would make the building the ‘front door’ of the campus. The project was brought forward to cater for an increase in medical student numbers; like biochemistry, microbiology had previously been squeezed into the medical school buildings. Construction started late in 1972 and was competed in 1974. In the same year work started on the final building in the science complex, Science III. The design for this large building was a joint-project of the Ministry of Works and Allingham, Harris and Partners; its foundations required ‘one of the largest single [concrete] pours to be laid on a Dunedin site’, noted the Evening Star newspaper. It opened in 1977 to house the physics department and science library, with mathematics moving in a little later.

All of this building was a great boon to local trades firms. Fletcher Construction Ltd, which had grown into a building powerhouse since its small beginnings in Dunedin early in the century, was main contractor for the first three science buildings. The next two contracts went to another large firm, Naylor Love Construction Ltd. Building seems to have gone reasonably smoothly, but there was one major exception. In 1971, as a crane was lifted from one floor to another of the partially-completed Science II building, a wire rope broke and the crane fell 15 feet, landing on two young workers. One of them, Kenneth Copland, was killed.

The new science buildings feature at top right of this late-1970s aerial view of the central Dunedin campus. See this earlier blog post for further discussion of this image. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S12-192J.

Opinions varied on the design of these buildings. Where space was concerned, they were a great improvement for the sciences. Chemistry researchers, for instance, had previously squeezed into the attics and basements of what is now the geology building, in conditions considered unsafe even in those less safety-conscious days; now they had two large purpose-designed buildings. The buildings were also well equipped. New biochemistry professor George Petersen put many hours into his application for the grant to equip the new building, accounting for every last rubber bung together with the expensive new machines needed for the best teaching and research. The department eventually obtained a government grant for over six million dollars in today’s values to equip the biochemistry building; it was, recalls Petersen, as well equipped as any biochemistry department he had seen and helped attract good staff to Otago.

All that concrete architecture took some getting used to, though. Stan Hughes, who had been a technician in the physics department since the 1920s, found the design of the Science III building ‘rather severe’. He preferred the old building (the south end of what is now the registry), which was ‘marvellous – every floor was different’. It was ‘pleasant to walk around’ and also ‘so variable that it is adaptable’. Four decades later, opinions of the architectural style of the 1970s science precinct remain mixed. The 2010 campus master plan noted that the science buildings were ‘from an architectural period that was not renowned for the subtlety of its aesthetics’, with somebody once describing Science II as ‘being designed by Stalin’s personal architect’. Part of the current project to redevelop Science I involves a new exterior design ‘to play down the concrete box appearance in favour of softened architectural lines’. The need to re-clad concrete buildings of this era for technical reasons – 1960s and 70s construction techniques have not stood the test of time, with surfaces crumbling – has already provided an opportunity for a little restyling. Recladding of the microbiology building was completed in 2010, though not everybody approves of its new look – a friend now calls it the Joan Rivers building, in honour of its ‘garish’ recladding!

Whatever you think of its style, the science precinct has been highly significant in the university’s history. Generations of students have learned all about science in its laboratories and lecture rooms and much exciting research has emerged from these buildings. Do you have any memories to share of the science complex?

The newly-refurbished microbiology building in 2010. Photograph courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Preparing for the health professions

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1870s, 1880s, 1900s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, anthropology, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, dentistry, English, mathematics, medical laboratory science, medicine, pharmacy, physics, physiotherapy

A familiar sight to HSFY students of recent years – popular teacher Tony Zaharic of the biochemistry department. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) is a term very familiar to anybody who has been around the university over the past couple of decades. Students aiming to enter one of Otago’s undergraduate health science degrees – dentistry, medical laboratory science, medicine, pharmacy and physiotherapy – complete this shared course in their first year of university study. Entry to the professional degrees is also available to some graduates, but most come via the HSFY course, which brings a large number of students to Otago. The course has undergone a few changes since it first appeared under this guise in 1998 and it was built on a much older tradition of the ‘intermediate’ year; I thought it would be interesting to look back over the long history of first year health science courses.

When the medical school started out in the 1870s it could only offer the first two years of a medical course and students headed overseas – most often to Edinburgh – to complete their training. Prospective doctors had to register as medical students, which required them to pass a ‘preliminary examination in general education’. Once registered, medical students started out on their two-year course in chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology, surgery and clinical instruction at the hospital. From 1885 students could complete their entire medical course at Otago. To obtain a New Zealand medical degree, they needed to pass an intermediate exam, followed by three professional exams. The intermediate exam covered a general university science prospectus of biology, physics and chemistry.

The dental school opened in 1907, offering a four-year degree, later extended to five years. Students had to formally register for the course and this required passing the same preliminary exam as medical students. Also like medical students, they took the standard first-year courses in physics and chemistry, but added to the biology requirement was a course in dental anatomy. There was little rest for dental and medical students, for as soon as their first-year exams were over they commenced their specialist courses with a ‘summer term’. For many years there was, however, no competition for places: anybody who could pay the fees, complete the courses and pass the exams could qualify as a doctor or dentist.

In 1941, faced with rising student numbers and significant overcrowding, the Otago medical school for the first time limited entry to its second-year classes, initially to 100 students. Some places were reserved for graduates and people repeating second year, but for most students entry came through obtaining the best exam marks in the intermediate course. No intermediate medical student could afford to rest on their laurels now: competition for entry to medical school varied from year to year but was generally tough. Some of those who did not gain entry to the medical course instead enrolled for dentistry. From 1945 the specialist dental course disappeared from first year and prospective dentists took exactly the same intermediate course as prospective doctors, that is, first-year chemistry, physics and biology (zoology and botany). Unsurprisingly, the dental course then became crowded, exacerbated by an influx of returned servicemen to university. From 1947 entry to second-year classes in the dental school was also limited, initially to 50 places.

Dental students working in the prosthetics lab in 1949. Before reaching this stage they had to overcome the hurdle of a competitive intermediate year. From left: Brian Arkinstall, Jim Armour, Reece Baker, Clive Bayley, Rod Beattie and Nick Bebich. Image courtesy of Elaine Donaldson.

The medical school began offering a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree in the 1960s, though most New Zealand pharmacists trained through a technical institute diploma course until 1991, when Otago’s newly independent school of pharmacy became the country’s sole training programme for pharmacists. The intermediate year for pharmacy was the same as that for medicine or dentistry – chemistry, biology and physics.

The intermediate health science courses remained essentially unchanged for many years, though there were of course some changes to the content of the basic science courses, reflecting new scientific developments. Over time, though, questions arose about the suitability of the criteria for entry to health science courses: did New Zealanders want their doctors and dentists selected purely through their ability to obtain top marks in science exams? Academic ability and scientific understanding were clearly important, but the best health professionals also needed some sympathetic understanding of the human condition and good communication skills. Extensive changes to the medical curriculum in the 1970s included modifications to the long-standing biology/chemistry/physics requirement of the intermediate course. From 1973 students took four subjects in their intermediate year: chemistry, biology and any two subjects of their choice from the arts or sciences (those who hadn’t got 50% or more in either maths or physics at bursary level had to include one of those among the two options). While some students stuck with the sciences, others branched out, with anthropology a popular choice. From 1981 students without an arts background were forced to think more laterally, as those without 50% or more in an arts subject at bursary level had to include an arts paper in their medical intermediate programme. The dentistry intermediate also added a fourth subject, taken in any of the arts and sciences, in 1980. Pharmacy retained a more scientific focus for longer. It added a statistics paper to its biology, chemistry and physics intermediate year from 1975. It was not until 1988 that pharmacy intermediates had a wider choice: they could then choose between physics and statistics, freeing them up to take their fourth course from any within the science, arts or commerce offerings.

Concerns remained about the communication skills of the medical profession. In 1993 the English department introduced a new paper primarily designed for health science students (though also open to others): ‘language, style and communication’, an ‘introduction to the fundamentals of effective speaking and writing’. This became a compulsory part of the intermediate years for medicine and pharmacy, unless a student had a good pass in bursary English; dental students were also advised to take an approved English paper from 1995.

1998 brought the biggest change yet to intermediate courses, with a completely revamped programme named Health Sciences First Year. Controversially, the course had to be taken in Dunedin; previously students had been able to complete their intermediate year at any university. Cynics noted that this increased Otago’s student numbers and thereby its funding. This was undoubtedly true, but there were also sound academic reasons behind the change. First, it was difficult to make fair comparisons between applicants who had obtained their grades in intermediate subjects at a variety of institutions. Second, and more important, Otago could now tailor its Stage 1 courses more closely to the needs of the health sciences and transfer some of the overcrowded specialist curriculum into first year. The course included two brand new compulsory papers – foundations of biochemistry, and chemistry: molecular reactivity – together with the biology of cells and biology for health sciences. Students without exemptions also needed to complete introductory physics, introductory biostatistics and the English language, style and communication paper. Students needed a total of 8 papers, leaving them to choose between 1 and 4 other subjects. This course became the common intermediate year for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, medical laboratory science and physiotherapy degrees. The change was most radical for physiotherapy, which previously had a tightly-structured first year programme with papers specifically designed for the profession (the Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree was jointly taught by the university and Otago Polytechnic from 1991, with the university taking sole responsibility from 1996).

HSFY was modified over the years to cater for changing health priorities and learning needs. Biostatistics morphed into epidemiology, a specialist biological physics paper was added, the compulsory English paper was dropped (except for those who failed a diagnostic test) and in 2007 a new acronym – HUBS – entered the Otago lexicon. ‘Human body systems’ replaced the former biology papers; it was a significant modification aimed at improving students’ self-directed learning skills. Throughout, the HSFY course attracted many enrolments and competition for entry to second-year classes in the professional degrees remained intense. Debate continued – and will probably never end – over selection methods. Grades remain the number one criterion, but some courses now also require prospective students to pass a psychometric test, the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT), a widely-used tool devised in Australia. At Otago UMAT became part of the admission process for medicine in 2003, for dentistry in 2005 and for medical laboratory science in 2007; the dental school also interviewed prospective students from 2005. For some decades a number of places have been reserved for the best Maori and Pasifika applicants, because New Zealand needs more Pacific Island and Maori health professionals, while more recently the medical and dental programmes have also targeted students from rural backgrounds with a commitment to rural practice, to help overcome serious shortages of rural health practitioners.

Are you a survivor of HSFY or one of the older intermediate courses? Do you have any memories to share?

PhDs by the thousand

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1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, accounting, biochemistry, botany, chemistry, economics, history, medicine, microbiology, PhD, physiology, postgraduates, research

A PhD is well worth celebrating! Graduates on 13 December 2014. Photo by Michael Thomas, courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

In 2007 the University of Otago reached a milestone so significant it held a gala ball at Larnach Castle. A large group of postgraduate students gathered for a convivial evening, celebrating the enrolment of over 1000 PhD students at Otago that year. Students of a century earlier could not have imagined such an event. They would have been shocked at the numbers, for a start, but many would also have no idea what a PhD was. The growth of the premier research degree is one of the significant changes in university life over recent decades.

PhDs are a fairly recent phenomenon in the British and colonial world. The PhD as a higher research degree had its origins in Berlin in the early 1800s and was adopted in the USA from the 1860s. Oxford did not pick up the baton until 1917 but by 1919 it was in all British universities. The University of New Zealand – the federal authority which set the syllabus, conducted exams and awarded degrees for all universities here until 1961 – introduced the PhD degree in 1922, but the programme quickly ran into problems thanks to a requirement for full-time study. That made it less flexible than existing higher degrees, which had been around since the 19^th century. By 1900 three Otago students had earned a Doctor of Science degree, three were Doctors of Laws and four Doctors of Medicine. For those degrees students presented a thesis or publication, completed without any supervision from the university. Settling on a uniform standard for the PhD was another difficulty and, in the face of few enrolments, in 1926 the University of New Zealand abolished the PhD degree.

By the time existing students had completed, there were just nine graduates from the University of New Zealand’s first experiment with the PhD. Three were from Otago, and it’s nice that they were distributed around three of the current four academic divisions: sciences, humanities and commerce. The honour of being the first Otago student to graduate PhD, in 1927, goes to Rudolf Penseler, whose thesis was ‘Experiments on the Synthesis of Apofenchocamphoric Acid’, completed in the chemistry department. He later did further research in England and Germany before returning to a varied career in New Zealand. Following Penseler, James Salmond graduated with a PhD in history in 1928 and Walter Boraman in economics in 1929. Boraman became a secondary teacher and school inspector, while Salmond became a minister, educator and leader in the Presbyterian Church (Salmond College is named for him and his sister).

Arthur Campbell teaching in the first-year chemistry lab in the early 1950s. He was lecturing during the day and working on his own research at night. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

After World War Two, as the country came to value increasingly the research work being done in universities, the PhD degree was re-introduced, this time to stay. Otago’s first post-war PhD graduate was Richard (Dick) Batt, a chemist, in 1948. Like quite a few of that generation of PhD graduates he went on to a distinguished academic career, in his case at Massey University, where he became a noted alcohol researcher. The next made his career closer to home. Arthur Campbell, who was once Batt’s flatmate, graduated PhD in 1953. With the regulations now more flexible, he was able to complete his research part-time while working as an assistant lecturer; in fact he did most of his work late at night in the laboratory. After completing he spent some time researching in Glasgow before returning to the Otago chemistry department, where he later became professor. He eventually retired in 1987, noted as ‘an analytical chemist without peer’. A second 1953 graduate – Lyle Fastier, based in the medical school – completed ‘an experimental study of the mouse encephalomyelitis group of viruses’. The following year Margaret Di Menna became Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first female PhD graduate, with her microbiology thesis on ‘Yeasts of the human body: their nature and relationships’.

By the end of the 1950s another ten PhD graduates had been added to Otago’s credit, all of them in chemistry and biochemistry with one exception, which was in botany. Through the 1960s the Otago PhD slowly grew in popularity, though it took a while before the prejudice against ‘colonial’ degrees was lost and the best scholars no longer felt compelled to travel overseas for doctoral work. The colonial cringe is now long gone, with candidates coming from all over the world to study here. Good Otago staff attracted good research students, with the medical school a particularly important draw for researchers. Though fields of study broadened through the 1960s and 1970s, a very large proportion of Otago PhDs in those decades were in biochemistry, physiology and microbiology, together with chemistry. Funding was significant in attracting students too. After the devolution of scholarships, once run nationally by the University Grants Committee, Otago committed heavily to providing support for PhD students. In 1995 it boasted of being the New Zealand leader in postgraduate support, granting 97 scholarships (paying full fees plus $12,000) to PhD candidates, plus 89 awards to masters students. Scholarships assumed ever greater significance as the government reduced the duration of its financial support to students.

In 1995 Otago had just under 500 PhD candidates in a wide variety of fields, with 38% in the sciences, 34% in health sciences, 19% in humanities and 9% in commerce. The following year Paul Theivananthampillai became the 1000^th person to graduate with an Otago PhD (the count began in 1962, following the abolition of the University of New Zealand). Like many before him the 1000^th graduate was already an Otago staff member; he completed his study on ‘the coalignment of strategic control systems’ while lecturing in the Department of Accountancy. The next 1000 Otago PhD graduates took just nine years to produce. Now (June 2015), the University of Otago boasts 3514 PhD graduates, together with 25 who graduated under the old federal system. Their research represents a pretty significant contribution to the sum of human knowledge! Some of that knowledge can now be accessed freely on the Otago University Research Archive, which has digital versions of many Otago PhDs – happy reading!

PhD graduates during the 25 August 2012 ceremony. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Otago’s war effort

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1940s, chemistry, clothing, home science, human nutrition, medicine, physics, Studholme, war, women

A tarpaulin lean-to operating theatre of the 6 New Zealand Field Ambulance near Cassino, Italy. Many Otago medical graduates found themselves working in facilities like this during World War II. Photographed by George Robert Bull on 25 April 1944. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Department of Internal Affairs War History Branch collection, DA-05591-F.

In the midst of all the centenary commemorations of World War I, the 75th anniversary of World War II has been rather overshadowed. As I’ve written here before about the impact of World War I on the University of Otago, I’m marking Anzac Day this year by considering the university’s involvement in the second great conflict of the 20th century.

As had been the case during the ‘Great War’, many Otago staff and students served with the forces during World War II and the conflict had an enormous effect on those people and their families and friends. The exact numbers involved are unclear, but the university annual report for 1942 gives figures for that stage of the war – as of December 1942, 13 members of staff and about 725 students and former students were on active service, and 28 had died. Since the total student roll of the university just before the war was around 1400, this was a very significant contribution. Many other students spent their vacations completing military training. For medical and dental students, this was done through the Otago University Medical Corps. Some students not involved in military training were instead manpowered to carry out essential work on farms during breaks.

Student enrolments dropped off during the first half of the war, hitting a low of 1348 in 1942 before steadily rising again to 1839 in 1945; the end of the war led to a big influx of students in 1946, when the roll reached 2440. Variation was huge between the different faculties. There was a significant wartime drop in the number of arts students, but it was the small commerce and law faculties which fared the worst. Meanwhile, science and home science numbers increased, and those in medicine flourished as the demand for doctors both military and civilian grew. The medical school struggled to resource this student growth and had to introduce restrictions on entry to second-year medical classes for the first time in 1941. One unfortunate result of such restrictions was public resentment towards war refugee doctors (mostly Jews from Germany, Austria, Hungary and Poland) who had been accepted into New Zealand. Some were required to complete further training at the medical school – they were seen to be taking places ahead of New Zealand students. The attitudes of both medical school and university towards these refugees were decidedly mixed.

In 1942 the medical school accounted for 40% of Otago students, a percentage only reached once previously, and that was during World War I. Med students were a traditionally conservative group and their dominance contributed to what OUSA historian Sam Elworthy has described as “the death of political radicalism” on campus during the war. Of course, other wartime influences played their part. Students wanted to demonstrate their loyalty in an environment of public suspicion, where citizens believed healthy young men who continued at university were shirking their patriotic duty. Wartime did offer new leadership opportunities for women, who increased from around 25% of students in the mid-1930s to 40% in 1942 (a percentage they would not reach again until 1976, after dropping back below 30% after the war). Women were elected to the students’ association executive, edited Critic and became presidents of the dramatic and literary societies.

Otago’s Professor of Chemistry, Frederick Soper, co-ordinated New Zealand’s war efforts in chemistry. He is photographed around December 1946. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand Free Lance collection, PAColl-8602-66.

As well as supplying numerous personnel to the military forces, the University of Otago made important contributions to the war effort through its scientific work. Government scientists and the universities cooperated on various  projects. At Otago, Professor Robert Jack and his colleagues in the physics department worked on infrared sensors for the detection of shipping. Frederick Soper, the chemistry professor (later vice-chancellor), chaired the chemical section of the national Defence Science Committee, whose projects mostly related to producing products in short supply due to the war, including munitions and many other items which were normally imported. Otago staff worked on an antidote for war gas, production of chemicals required for naval sonar and smoke bombs, and the testing of New Zealand ergot (an essential drug used in obstetrics). Stanley Slater of the chemistry department produced morphine using opium which had been confiscated by the police under drug legislation (the same project was carried out during World War I by Prof Thomas Easterfield at Victoria University of Wellington).

War and post-war food shortages also inspired various university projects. Leading Otago scientist Muriel Bell was appointed government nutrition officer, setting the food ration scales and continuing her applied research into New Zealand foods. Among many other things, she was well-known by the public for her rosehip syrup recipe, designed to supply Vitamin C to young children. The School of Home Science got involved in the war effort right from the beginning, using Studholme Hall to train local women in large quantity cookery, so they would be prepared in case of emergencies in hospitals. The school’s clothing and textile experts advised on the manufacture of garments for soldiers.

I haven’t found any references to deadly weapons being produced on campus, but one of the university’s neighbours became a munitions factory during the war. Engineering firm J & AP Scott, located on the corner of Leith and Albany streets, produced 3-inch mortar shells and cast iron practice bombs, with the government doubling the size of their building to aid this war work. The university later took over the Scott building, which has been the home of Property Services for many years.

A 1920s advertisement for engineering firm J & AP Scott, which manufactured munitions during World War II. The university later took over the building. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, from the Otago Motor Club Yearbook 1927-8, Automobile Association Otago records, 95-056 Box 97.

In the 1970s, looking back on World War II, Frederick Soper commented that it was “popular to accuse the Universities of being ivory towers but I should like to affirm that University policies do respond to national needs.” The research efforts of New Zealand universities during the war led to growing support for their research in the post-war period. One very significant result was the re-introduction of the PhD degree in 1946 – it had first been offered in the wake of World War I but withdrawn after just a few years. For better and for worse, the war of 1939-1945 clearly had a major impact on Otago. Do you know of any other stories relating to the university and the war?

Interim and permanent buildings

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1960s, 1970s, 1980s, chemistry, computer science, geology, library, mathematics, physics, technology

This year is the 50th anniversary of two significant university buildings. Ironically, the one originally called ‘interim’ is still here, while the other has gone!

The northern side of the new Library/Arts Building in 1965. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S13-217g.

On 7 April 1965 the new Library/Arts Building was officially opened by the Minister of Education with much fanfare (complete with a student protest about inadequate government funding for university staff and facilities). The library, which had been taking up more and more space in the old clocktower building, now had a spacious new home, and there was also room for some of the arts and commerce departments. Those departments later moved out into other new buildings, allowing the library to expand. But as the university grew and grew, the library space became inadequate. Since the building’s design did not allow for any additions, some of the collections were moved into other spaces. Eventually the central library building was replaced by the current Information Services Building, completed in 2001.

Not far away from the library is the other 1965 building, now known as the Information Technology Services Building. It started out as the Interim Science Building. The word interim did not refer to the building, but to its usage – it was to provide temporary additional space for the physical sciences until their large new buildings were completed in the 1970s. There was a lot less fanfare over this building. I haven’t yet uncovered any evidence that it even had an official opening – its residents simply moved in and started using it in September 1965.

Though the numbers seem small by today’s standards, the university was growing rapidly in this period, making the old buildings woefully inadequate. The student roll jumped from 2000 in 1955 to 3700 in 1965; by 1975 it had reached 6300. As the Vice-Chancellor Arthur Beacham commented in 1964 when plans for the interim building were announced, it meant the university could avoid restricting entry into the physical sciences, whose labs were cramped into every attic and basement available.

The key feature of the Interim Science Building – a two-storey light steel-frame construction – was that it could be built quickly. The design, by Auckland architects Beatson, Rix-Trott, Carter & Co., had already been used for buildings at Auckland and Massey universities, though of course the foundations had to be customised for the site. The site was a particularly interesting one. With no space for a long building readily available around campus, it was built to span the Water of Leith. Once government funding was approved in October 1964, the University of Otago accepted a tender from Dunedin building firm Mitchell Brothers and, true to schedule, science departments moved in just under a year later.

The Information Technology Services Building, formerly the Interim Science Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

For several years the Interim Science Building provided extra laboratory space for the geology, physics and chemistry departments. In the 1970s, as the large new Science I, II and III buildings were completed, those departments moved out. The initial plan was for the building to then become available for expansion of the School of Home Science, but nobody had foreseen the ever-growing needs of another original occupant of the building, the university’s computing services.

The timing of the Interim Science Building construction was providential for the beginnings of computing at Otago. Space was reserved for installation of an IBM 360/30 early in 1966; this was run by the mathematics department. The large space under the building, where it crossed the Leith, proved convenient for the running of all the cables needed for the computer and its powerful air conditioning system. There were some disadvantages though. Brian Cox, the mathematician who became Otago’s first computer scientist, recalls that the puzzle of frequent false fire alarms was solved when they discovered that waterblasting under the building had accidentally stripped the insulation off all the wiring! Rumour has it that people waiting for the computer to work through a program sometimes passed the time by fishing out the window.

The Computing Centre’s first machine, from its 1971 ‘Notes for users’.

Early computers were very large in size, if not in data capabilities – Otago’s first IBM had 16KB of memory! A new computer, installed in 1973, filled half the ground floor of the Interim Sciences Building. Later computers were smaller, but there were many more of them, together with a growing staff to manage computer services all around campus, train users and carry out academic research and teaching in computer science. By the mid-1980s computing had taken over the entire building, which was renamed the Computing Services Building to reflect that. The building design had proved flexible – “hardly any of its internal walls are the originals”, commented the staff newsletter in 1986. Later, when Computing Services became Information Technology Services, the building was renamed the Information Technology Services Building.

Do you have any memories to share of the Interim Sciences Building? And do you know of any early photos of the building? The only ones I’ve located so far are in newspaper clippings. It’s hard to photograph these days because the trees have grown so much!

Another view of the ITS Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

Recruiting scientists

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1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, anatomy, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, microbiology, neuroscience, physical education

Looking at bacteria on an agar model of a set of teeth during the microbiology project at the first Hands-on science camp, 1990. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit records, MS-4185/042, S15-500d.

Recruiting good students is a priority for every university department. Everybody wants to attract the brightest and the best, but there is no shortage of competition from other subjects and other universities. Attracting interest early is essential, for once students have dropped a subject in school, they are unlikely to consider it as an option for tertiary study. In 1987 Donald McGregor, Dean of Otago’s Faculty of Science, noted “grave and widespread concerns over science and mathematics education in New Zealand”. Students were less well prepared than a few years earlier, many were turning away from science at an early age, and a much smaller proportion of the brightest students were enrolling in tertiary science courses.

Some individual science departments had already established programmes to promote their subjects in schools – for example, in 1985 the Department of Mathematics and Statistics started a junior maths competition and, together with the Department of Computer Science, organised a national computer art competition. Now the Science Faculty set up a Science-Link Committee to foster links with schools and promote science in the community, and also a Science Education Forum for concerned educators to support one another in advancing science and maths education at all levels in Otago. University scientists took part in a wide variety of activities to promote science in schools, ranging from more competitions and science fairs to an adopt-a-scientist programme and a junior chemistry club (for intermediate school children).

One of the boldest new schemes of the Science Education Forum had a national reach and included all of the sciences. Hands-on science brought a group of secondary students of ‘exceptional’ ability to Otago in January 1990 for a week of science activities – Gerry Carrington, convenor of the organising committee, described it as an “outward bound school for scientists”. The first science camp was an enormous success, setting a pattern which has continued ever since. In the mornings students worked in small groups on a challenging project designed by one of the university departments and guided by staff and tutors. The afternoons were taken up by a more relaxed recreation programme, allowing them to explore the Dunedin environs. Participants from out of town – about 100 of the 140 involved that first year – stayed in one of the residential colleges, and organisers arranged sponsorship for those who could not afford the expenses.

Some intense work underway during the anatomy project at Hands-on science, 2015. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.

After that first year, described by students as “exciting and inspiring”, Hands-on science became a fixture on the university calendar every January, attracting more applications each year. Eventually the roll settled at around 240, with many turned away (there were 520 applicants for this year’s course). As well as their research projects, students listened to inspiring lectures. A programme of “science snacks”, allowing participants to get a briefer taste of a wide variety of science activities, was later added to the afternoon schedule, though there were still a few purely recreational activities on offer, including quizzes, discos and outdoor challenges.

It’s not all serious! Students demonstrate the ascent of humanity during Campus Capers, a treasure hunt to familiarise students with the campus, 2013. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.

In its first 26 years Hands-on science has proved an effective recruitment tool for the sciences and, more specifically, for the sciences at Otago – around 40% of those attending end up as Otago students. More than half the participants some years are female, so it has helped encourage women into science careers. In more recent years there has also been increasing interest in the programme from Maori, who have been, traditionally, much under-represented in the sciences. Hands-on science has also proved particularly valuable for young people from small towns, giving them an opportunity to meet others with an interest in science.

Unsurprisingly for a programme designed for exceptional students, there have been some remarkable individuals attending Hands-on science. Perhaps the best-known to date is Chris Butcher, one of the engineers who created the Halo computer games. For some, the programme has determined their entire career. Christopher Lind, a 16-year-old from Rangiora, was inspired by Otago’s Brian Hyland, who explained the science of studying the brain and its functions. “I knew right then I wanted to be a neurosurgeon… I thought the brain sounded interesting and brain surgery was a frontier science”, he commented to the Otago Daily Times when he returned to Dunedin for a conference in 2009. Lind graduated in medicine from Otago and is now a neurosurgical professor in Perth, Australia.

With stories like this it is no wonder the people behind Hands-on science felt reason to celebrate last year when they held the 25th programme! Do you have any stories to share of Hands-on science? And can you help identify any of the participants in the photographs?

The physical education project at a recent Hands-on science course. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.

The first four professors

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1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, chemistry, classics, English, geology, mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology

The physically and intellectually imposing Professor George Sale, photographed around 1876. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Rolleston album 2. Reference PA1-q-197-11-2.

You’d think it would be pretty tricky to recruit four good candidates to be the inaugural teaching staff of a tiny institution, located as far as it was possible to get from Europe, in a town which was the centre of a colony only a couple of decades old. But Otago managed to secure the services of four outstanding men as its first professors. All were young and presumably attracted to the idea of shaping a new university in a lively new colony; they must have had a considerable taste for adventure.

The oldest, George Sale (1831-1922), was just 39 years old when appointed Professor of Classics in 1870, while the youngest, Duncan Macgregor (1843-1906), was only 27 on his appointment as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy. Joining them on the foundation staff were John Shand (1834-1914), Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and James Gow Black (1835-1914), Professor of Natural Science.

Sale, a Cambridge graduate, had already spent some years in New Zealand. He migrated in 1860, partly for health reasons, but probably also to escape the conventions of the life of an English gentleman. He worked on a Canterbury sheep run, was first editor of the Christchurch Press, joined the Otago goldrush as a miner, and then returned to Canterbury to become Provincial Treasurer; he later held various official posts on the West Coast goldfields. The illness of his father, a master at Rugby School, prompted his return to England in 1869; there he was selected over 61 other applicants for the Otago chair of classics.

Sale’s three professorial colleagues were all Scots of humble backgrounds whose academic ability had served them well; all had more conventional CVs than the colourful Sale. Black came from a poor Perthshire crofting family and started teaching at 14 years of age; he eventually obtained three degrees from the University of Edinburgh, including in 1869 a doctorate, an unusual and elite qualification in those days. Shand hailed from Morayshire, where his father was a farm steward. Capable in many fields, he excelled particularly at mathematics and obtained a master’s degree from the University of Aberdeen. After that he taught in various Scottish academies and also in the military mathematics department of the Royal Academy in Gosport, England. Macgregor was a mason’s son and another Aberdeen graduate; like Black he came from Perthshire. After completing his MA at Aberdeen, where he excelled in mental and moral philosophy, he graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 1870.

Fortunately all four men had broad academic interests, because they had to teach a variety of subjects in Otago’s early years. Sale was responsible for teaching English as well as Latin and Greek until the appointment of the first Professor of English, John Mainwaring Brown, in 1880. Shand taught both mathematics and physics (then termed natural philosophy) until 1886, when he was appointed to a newly-created chair of natural philosophy and Frederick Gibbons became Professor of Mathematics. As Professor of Natural Science, Black was responsible for teaching both chemistry and geology until 1874, when Frederick Hutton, newly appointed Provincial Geologist, became lecturer in geology and zoology, allowing Black to concentrate on chemistry. Macgregor’s subject, mental and moral philosophy (sometimes known as mental science) incorporated both philosophy and psychology.

Macgregor left the University of Otago to become national Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, Hospitals and Charitable Institutions in 1886. His Otago career of 15 years may seem long, but it paled next to those of his early colleagues. Sale retired in 1908, Black in 1911, and Shand was eventually forced to leave due to failing eyesight in 1913 after 42 years as an Otago professor. These four remarkable men not only shaped New Zealand’s first university, but also played an active part in the local community and were well-known citizens of Dunedin.

What did the students make of these men? Reminscences written by early students for the university’s jubilee help bring the professors to life. David Renfrew White, who later became Otago’s first Professor of Education, recalled that Macgregor was unconventional, had “no professorial airs or restraint,” and was much loved by his students. His lectures were very interesting and challenging: “there was no drudgery and wearisomeness about this class; the hour was all too short.” He once lit a cigar while supervising a written exam, and “one at least of the students thought that if he, too, were allowed to smoke he would do a better examination paper.”

Shand was “patient with the dullest student, and of a quiet, philosophic temperament. He looked with clear common-sense on men and things,” commented White. Violet Greig, another early student, remembered Shand’s “radiant smile and glorious white hair … I can see him now looking over his spectacles as he stands with that metre rule in his hand waiting for the students to assemble, and I can hear him now dictating our ‘expiriments for tu-marra’ …” The kindly Shand was a “born teacher,” commented Thomas Pearce: “who will ever forget his blackboard performances, his cancellations and eliminations and reductions from complexity to simplicity.”

Black was energetic and genial and “always doing kindnesses to someone” remembered Greig; he was a popular president of the university’s football association. His classes could be exciting and sometimes literally explosive. Greig could “still hear the thud of the rock sulphur on that table as the doctor held it high and threw it noisily down to impress upon his students that it was one form of sulphur.” Pearce  commented on his “ebullient nature” and original turn of phrase; “students flocked to his classes not to learn chemistry, but to feel the magic force of his originality.”

Sale was a highly respected scholar who was “a splendid guide” to anybody with an interest in classics, recalled 1890s student John Callan. Unfortunately many Otago students did not have an interest in, or gift for, Latin, which was a compulsory subject: “our knowledge of classics must have been a source of continual torture to the professor,” wrote John O’Shea. Callan commented that, if Sale struggled to teach adequate Latin to “the rest of us, he at least kept us in order, partly by his gift of crushing sarcasm, but more just by being what he was, a silent, massive man, full of unutterable possibilities.” He was a keen athlete, who preceded Black as president of that all-important football association.

1890s student John O’Shea sums it all up well. “I have heard it said by older students that when Sale, Shand, Black, and Macgregor taught the University the students felt that they were led by giants. I knew the first three in their later days, and I can believe the statement.”

 

Compulsory languages

Tags

1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, chemistry, classics, French, German, Greek, languages, Latin, law, Maori, medicine, Russian

Proving an ability to understand a text like this, from a 1907 physics journal, was compulsory for science students until the mid-twentieth century. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Do you have a science degree? And can you read and understand a foreign language? We are accustomed these days to compulsory tests for competency in English, largely directed at students whose first language is not English. Some degrees also require or recommend learning te reo Maori; for instance, Otago PhD students in history have to complete a Maori paper. But for earlier generations of Otago students language tests meant proving they could read French or German.

The rationale behind this was that much academic work was published in German and French, so a good scholar needed to read these languages to keep up with the latest research. In 1899 Thomas Gilray, Otago’s English Professor and Chair of the Professorial Board, wrote of his regret that German was not being taught in more Otago schools: “A number of our ablest young men after passing through our University Colleges, now go to Europe to pursue their studies and it is a great disadvantage to them that they have no opportunity here of learning German. Every Student knows that it is impossible to get to the bottom of almost any subject without a knowledge of German.”

Latin was taught at Otago from its first year of classes, 1871, with modern languages – French, German and Italian – added to the syllabus in 1875. Italian only lasted a year, but French and German survived. The first compulsory language was Latin. A pass in a Latin paper was required for a BA until 1903, when students could chose between Latin and Greek. From 1918 this was replaced with a more general requirement to complete a paper in a language other than English as part of a BA. This lasted until 1971, though by then there were various exemptions (including for maths students). Latin remained compulsory as part of a law degree until 1953.

Science students did not have to complete a full language paper, but from 1919 they did have to pass a test proving they could understand a piece of scientific writing in French or German. This remained compulsory for a BSc until 1948; it then became compulsory for a MSc until 1959. Medical students who had taken a year out to complete the Bachelor of Medical Science research degree also had to pass a language test until 1962; it then became optional, depending on the field of research they had selected. By then the test could be in Russian instead of French or German.

For people who had studied languages at high school the language test was not too difficult, especially as they could use a dictionary. But for some science students without any flair for languages it was a big barrier; indeed, it could be the most difficult aspect of their degree. Ann Wylie already knew French when starting her BSc degree at Otago in the 1940s, but chemistry lecturer Stan Slater persuaded all his second year students to learn German. He had recently completed a doctorate at Oxford and knew that chemistry scholars who couldn’t read the German literature were severely handicapped. Ann felt considerable sympathy for the tutor who had to teach German to a bunch of reluctant science students! Alan Mark, who had no previous language experience, learned German to fulfill the requirements for his MSc in botany in the 1950s. When he went to Duke University in the USA to complete his PhD, he was dismayed to discover they required proof of competency to read two languages other than English! He had to add French to his repertoire. Language requirements were certainly common at universities beyond New Zealand; indeed, they were probably less stringent here than in many places.

Otago’s twenty-first century science students can be grateful that so much scholarly literature is now published in English, in part thanks to the strength of English on the internet. Could you read an article in your field in a second or third language? Do you have any memories to share of the dreaded language test?