Origin of
the Laboratory
The County Veterinarian acts under the
direction of the Secretary of
the California Department of Food and Agriculture to enforce provisions
of the Food and Agricultural Code related to the health and sanitary
surroundings of livestock and poultry. The position is
established by the San Diego County Charter. The County
Veterinarian provides the only veterinary necropsy (animal autopsy)
facility in the county to check domestic animals and wildlife for
diseases. These services are available to our entire
community.
The San Diego Veterinary Laboratory started in 1933
as the State of
California Livestock and
Poultry Laboratory with state funding under the California Department
of Agriculture. It closed after nine months for lack of funds, but
reopened during 1934 in the hospital building of the San Diego
Zoological Society. On July 1, 1946, the laboratory became county
funded and merged with the Meat and Dairy Division unit of the County
Health Department to form the County Livestock Department directed by
the County Livestock Inspector. At that time the State Department of
Agriculture took over the meat inspection function formerly done by the
county.
New quarters were established at the County Operations Center
in a surplus WWII Quonset hut in San Diego Old Town. The farm bureau
and the poultry industry were primarily responsible for obtaining and
maintaining county funding. They showed that livestock and poultry
farms were paying disproportionately high property taxes versus single
family homes and apartments in relation to the county services they
received. The county laboratory was the one service they insisted on
retaining for their tax share. In 1963, the Laboratory moved to a new
3,472 square foot building at the new County Operations Center at 5555
Overland Ave. in the Kearny Mesa area.
The laboratory accepts, on a
fee-for-service basis, samples from county residents, private
veterinarians, and public agencies, providing veterinary laboratory
support to the County Department of Environmental Health, the County
Medical Examiner, County Department of Parks and Recreation, California
Department of Fish and Game, and other agencies for protection of
public
health. Staff provides expert testimony for animal law enforcement
agencies on animal cruelty and poisoning cases, and eliminates
suspicion of criminal acts by establishing true causes of death. This
also provides for review of allegations regarding neglect and implied
liability when animals die in County custody.
The primary focus of the
lab is the detection of diseases that are infectious to animals as well
as those transmissible to humans. The determination of cause-of-death
in crime investigation is another important function. This information
is obtained through necropsy (animal autopsy) examination.
Our
facility has always been a large volume laboratory
Twenty-one
cases submitted the same day with only one pathologist
available.
A comparison of necropsy accessions (requests for post mortem
examinations)
per pathologist staff year done in 1992 showed the following:
U. C. Davis ------------------------------ 167 per pathologist staff
year
Calif. Vet. Diag. Lab. Services ----------- 280 per pathologist staff
year
San Diego County Laboratory ----------- 594 per pathologist staff year
This work was in addition to submissions for serology, histopathology,
parasitology, and microbiology.
At that time the staff consisted of:
2 pathologists including the County Veterinarian
2 Senior
Laboratory Assistants (Lab and Office)
3/4 time Microbiologist as head of the technical staff
1/2 time Histology Technician
1/2 time Extra Help (Lab and
Office)
5.75 Laboratory Staff Year
Plus
1/2 time Non-Laboratory Public Health Veterinary epidemiologist field
position
Origin of the Private
Rear Exit.
A little known and little appreciated aspect of
design of
the current laboratory on Kearny Mesa is the origin of the rear exit in
the
director’s office. Dr Quortrup was the County
Veterinarian.
Several ladies that managed milk goat herds, when they
brought in animals to be necropsied, would stay quite a while talking
with Dr.
Quortrup. He was single at the time and
about their ages. There was no way he
could escape from his office without being seen. Therefore,
he had a rear door put in his
office, which worked very satisfactorily as illustrated below.
