Thomas Henry Dale qualified (MRCVS) at the New Edinburgh Veterinary College in 1889 and immediately came to South Africa as a civil veterinary surgeon (CVS) attached to the Army Veterinary Department. In October 1903 he joined the Veterinary Division in the Department of Agriculture of the Transvaal Colony. By 1908 he was district veterinary surgeon for Potchefstroom, Wolmaranstad and Bloemhof. In 1914 he was a government veterinary surgeon in Mossel Bay. Following the outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) he was appointed to commissioned rank in the Active Citizen Force in 1916. He relocated to Natal, where he died in service in Durban the next year. He published some short papers aimed at the farming community in the Transvaal Agricultural Journal (1904, 1906/7) and the Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa (1911, 1912).

Dale joined the Transvaal Veterinary Medical Association in 1903, the year it was founded. He served on its council from 1906 to 1914, and as president from 1907 to 1909. He delivered one of several contributions on "Piroplasmosis of the donkey" before its members in September 1903 (published in the Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics that same year), and in September 1907 read a paper on "Two undescribed diseases of sheep". The diseases were gousiekte and pulpy kidney (enterotoxemia) and the paper was published in the Veterinary Record in 1908. Later he contributed a paper on "A bone disease of fowls" (1913) to the same journal.

List of sources:

Curson, H.H. The veterinary profession in South Africa. Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association, 1931, Vol. 2, pp. 3-22; 1932, Vol. 3, pp. 133-137.

Dale, T.H. Heredity. Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa, 1911, Vol. 1, pp. 44-54.

Dale, T.H. Home remedies for livestock. Agricultural Journal of the Union of South Africa, 1912, Vol. 3, pp. 479-485.

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za Publications by T.H. Dale.

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://www.national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to T.H. Dale.

Posthumus, P.J. Past Veterinarians in South Africa (10th edition), Vol. 2, c.1992.

Transvaal [Colony], Department of Agriculture. The Veterinary Bacteriological Laboratories (Preface). Pretoria: Government Printer, 1909.

Transvaal Agricultural Journal, 1904, Vol. 2 and 1906/7, Vol. 9: Articles by Dale.

Union of South Africa. Public service list, 1914.

Compiled by: D.W. Verwoerd

Last updated: 2024-01-16 10:19:11