ACVO Charter Diplomates, Drs. Lionel Rubin, Samuel Vainisi and Seth Koch

My generation was required to perform military service following education. I had been given a deferment allowing me to attend college and professional school, but military service had to follow.  That usually involved being commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps, a common veterinary postgraduate first job.  I had looked forward to that, in that I saw a chance to travel overseas at government expense.

During my last year of veterinary school, I became acutely aware that large animal medicine was anathema to me, so to get out of two days of bovine medicine training, I applied to take the US Public Health Service (USPHS) qualifying examination- taking an examination was preferable to learning how to perform mastitis tests in cattle.  So I got out of two days of large animal training-it was a great trade-off!

Graduation came, and my dream of being a veterinary officer stationed in West Germany or the Far East was abruptly shattered when the Army intimated that I was most likely to be stationed for at least two years inspecting cattle in Kansas.  In desperation I called USPHS and asked if there were any positions available.  To my great surprise I was told that there was an immediate opening for a veterinarian as head of a dog and cat research facility.  I jumped at the opportunity, was accepted, commissioned in the USPHS, and told to report to the National Institutes of Health in Washington.  This wasn't overseas to my regret, but it was a far better choice than cattle inspection.  So to Bethesda I went, a US Public Health Service officer quite wet behind the ears.  My job was to provide suitable experimental animals to researchers there.  At that time most of the experimental dogs and cats were those that had been abandoned and were to be maintained in animal pounds awaiting euthanasia. There was a wide variety of canine and feline breeds of all ages.

My responsibilities could be covered by working six hours weekly, and that time could be further shortened by delegating some of the work to eager civil service workers under my command. I started looking for things to do with the other 44 hours of my required workweek and visited with some of the researchers using the animals I was supplying.  I was fascinated most by the experimental work being done by several physicians working in the ophthalmology section of the hospital at NIH and they were delighted to show me their methods and investigations.  So instead of just being a supply agent for the researchers I had plenty of time to do ocular examinations on the hundreds of animals passing through my supervision, and when I came across something that was other than normal, I was able to retain that experimental animal at least temporarily until the medical ophthalmologists could come down to the animal colony and tell me what I was seeing.  It was exciting for me, and apparently of great interest to them as well.  The professional cooperation led to several publications (1960-1962) and determined my future course. Thus began my ophthalmic career, and when my USPHS commitment was about to terminate, I applied to the Graduate School of Medicine of Penn for training in ophthalmology, in a course provided for their pre-residency ophthalmic physicians. This was only 1 of 2 facilities in the US that would accept veterinarians in the didactic aspect of pre-residency training.

Finishing the course in the early sixties, I became an instructor at the Penn vet school, teaching and running an eye clinic.  The work was exciting in that new conditions (at least new to me) were presented weekly, and the opportunities to explore them were only limited to the hours of the school day. Concomitant with the clinical work, I met Dr. L. Z. Saunders, a world class pathologist at SKF laboratories, who had an abiding interest in ophthalmic pathology. He volunteered to provide histologic preparation of interesting ocular material, and we would meet weekly to review the sections on a two headed microscope. Our cooperation was to continue for many years, and resulted in both journal publications and an ophthalmic pathology book, one of five books I published.

Early on at Penn, I received a call from a toxicologist at Wyeth laboratories asking me to examine the eyes of some experimental rats at their facility. Wyeth believed there was an ongoing ocular problem in a group of rats. I of course acceded to their request, and proceeded to ask the basic scientists at the veterinary school at Penn if there were any rats in their laboratories that I could examine, never having looked at one of these beasties before.  So with my vast experience of examining 10 rats in the Parasitology Lab at Penn, I presented myself to Wyeth laboratories to examine the group of experimental rats, some of which had dose-related cataracts (it had been the practice at Wyeth to have Lab technicians assess the status of the eyes in their experimental animals prior to this time).  This experience began a career-long interest in ophthalmic toxicology, which was both exciting and profitable, and allowed me to continue in my career at University of Pennsylvania, in spite of Penn's exceedingly low professional salaries (at least in my case).

The laboratory animal work also proved very satisfying.  I was able to participate in describing the peculiar actions of DMSO on the eyes of young growing animals (to my knowledge, the DMSO alterations remain unique).  I was also able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the FDA that the cataracts induced by statins were likely species specific to dogs and were not a major cause for concern were the statins to be administered experimentally to humans.  It was also satisfying to suggest that some potential new compounds not be administered even experimentally to humans because of the problems they caused in the experimental animal eye.

Interesting veterinary clinical research opportunities were also extant in the mid 60’s. The National Institutes of Health were eager to fund research into naturally occurring animal models of ocular disease and I was successful in convincing the NIH to fund further investigation into some of these models (retinal dysplasia, hemeralopia).

When Bill Magrane called me (1965 or 1966) requesting an appointment at my office at Penn, I of course excitedly agreed to meet him.  I knew of his accomplishments and was flattered to meet one of I believe two veterinary ophthalmologists then practicing in United States (Ray Roberts was the other).  Bill came and we met in a cubbyhole of perhaps 10 6 by 6 ft. offices each separated by plastic dividers and without doors.  Meeting a man of his renown in these less than humble quarters was embarrassing, but as a lowly assistant professor I had no other choice.  Bill, and I believe Ray Roberts, told me about their plans to start the American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists as a certifying organization (the American Society for Veterinary Ophthalmology had existed since 1957) and invited me to join them as one of the founders.  Roy Bellhorn was to be another and they were planning on meeting with Sam Vainisi. To say that I was flattered would be a monstrous understatement. The rest is history.

I spent my entire career at the University of Pennsylvania veterinary school. The combination of doing clinical ophthalmic practice, research, consulting in ophthalmic toxicology, and teaching was at that time not available at other locations. There were opportunities to travel widely for both lecturing and consultative capabilities. I became Professor emeritus at Penn (Vet School and Graduate School of Medicine) in 1992, but continue occasionally to consult in toxicology and to advise dog breeders on inherited conditions.

Dr. Lionel Rubin, VMD, MS, DACVO
Professor Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania