Vet Pathol 37:563-564 (2000)
© 2000 American College of Veterinary Pathologists
Commentary
A Brief History of the ACVP Insignia
P. B. Little
Pathology Associates International, Durham, NC
It is the year 2000, and you have just achieved your status as a board certified pathologist. Your letter of congratulation and your documents from ACVP are all prominently decorated with an heraldic insignia featuring some type of rampant animal. Does it signify something? To answer that, we must go back to 1973 and follow the evolution of this emblem. It is the year of Dr. Tom Hulland's presidency, the ACVP is 25 years old, and Dick Garner, the ACVP's Secretary-Treasurer, in an 11 February letter wonders if J.R.M. Innes, then at Bionetics Research Laboratories, can come up with an insignia design for the College. J.R.M. declines, acknowledging that he has just done one for the SPEP and is fresh out of ideas. The task is passed on by the president to a recent 1968 Diplomate, newly confident and having the brash enthusiasm of youth. That fall he brings forward to the Council, then meeting in San Antonio, three artistic renderings, one in typical heraldic form and two in modern logo format. The Council on 26 November 1973, consisting that day of Drs. Dodd, Craig, Garner, Henson, and Hulland, selects the heraldic motif and in 1974, newly appointed Secretary-Treasurer Norman Cheville uses it to decorate official College communications and at the annual meeting.
The chosen insignia (take a close look at the original art of Roslyn Alexander in Fig. 1) is composed of seven main features. A shield incorporating a microscope (not too original, or is it?), a flaming Aladdin's type lamp whose form originated before Roman times, and a chimerical animal that resembles the mythological griffon but is unique. Surmounting the shield are the cryptic initials of the ACVP overlying an array of nine bay leaves. Supporting the whole are the scrolled commands "Search Teach and Serve," noble sentiments later humorously extrapolated during academic shortages to mean "Searching for teachers to serve"!
Does this imagery have meaning and particular significance for us as College members? You know that it must; but most of us have forgotten or have never known this meaning. The rampant chimerical animal figure is our own unique creature, worthy of an association of veterinarians. This "compan" (so named by the designer) is a compound animal. Close examination shows it to have the head of a horse, which carries us back historically to the raison d'être for veterinarians. (See the fine historical book, The Illustrated History of Veterinary Medicine by Robert H. Dunlop, in this respect.) This proud animal also has the claws and tail of a predator, the wings of an eagle, and the hind feet of an ungulate. This chimera—and you may note that this animal is appropriately neutral in gender—is meant to represent the breadth of animals we all deal with and emphasizes the comparative biological nature of our professional activities. The microscope is not just any microscope but is an Austrian-made Reichert, tying us to the seminal disciplinary investigations of the German professor of pathology Rudolf Virchow. This model instrument originally served in the Department of Pathology at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, and was used for the quality assurance of pathology case reports during the time of Dr. Ken Jubb who, with Peter Kennedy and others, did so much in the 1960s to document and catalogue world knowledge of veterinary pathology. The Aladdin's style lamp exhorts us symbolically to "Emittem lutem" or "Give forth your light" that others may learn.
The adorning leaves were removed and the microscope and lamp were refashioned in 1991 by the College to give the emblem a more modern appearance. The array of bay leaves originally signified our historic strong nurturing connections with The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, whose own emblem still contains this ancient symbol for the art of medicine and the discipline of pathology. The supporting set of commands was originally intended to be directions to ACVP members to be responsible to their profession, to search for truth in their discipline, to teach it to others, and, finally, to serve mankind with their special veterinary medical talents, thus benefiting life on earth. Again in the College's desire to modernize the emblem's image, this dictum was slightly modified in 1991 but retains some of the original intent. This proud new insignia, now protected by trademark, (see Fig. 2), represents us all and, like the flags and emblems of clans and fighting groups, remains as a focal recognition point for those who labor in a common cause.
