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Jotello Festiri Soga

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Jotello Festiri Soga
Born1865
Died6 December 1906(1906-12-06) (aged 40–41)
Amalinda, East London, Cape Colony
Alma materEdinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Known forRinderpest
Scientific career
FieldsVeterinary surgeon

Jotello Festiri Soga (1865 – 6 December 1906) was South Africa's first black veterinary surgeon[1] who played a leading role in eradicating rinderpest.[2] The library at the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria is named for him.

Early life

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Soga was born in 1865 at the Mgwali Mission, in the former Transkei, South Africa, the fourth and youngest son of Reverend Tiyo Soga (1831–1871), and Scottish missionary Janet Burnside (1827–1903). The couple met when Tiyo Soga was studying theology in Glasgow.[3][4] Soga's father Tiyo had been keen for his children to be educated in Scotland. After Tiyo's death in 1871, Janet relocated the family to Scotland and Jotello and his siblings were educated initially at the Dollar Academy.[5] Jotello Soga went on to study veterinary medicine at Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine from 1882 to 1886. He qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons in 1886, with a gold medal distinction in botany.[1][6][7]

Personal life

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Apart from his youngest sister, Jessie Margaret Soga, LRAM contralto singer and suffragist who remained in Scotland, Soga and his siblings all returned to work and live in South Africa. William Anderson Soga (1858–1948) became a doctor and missionary;[8] John Henderson Soga (1860–1941) also became a missionary;[9] Allan Kirkland Soga (1861–1938) was an early mover in the African National Congress;[10] his sisters, Isabella Macfarlane Soga (1864–1884) and Frances Maria Anne Soga (1868–1942) worked in Christian missions.[10]

Like his father, though Jotello Soga also married a Scottish woman, Catherine Watson Chalmers in 1892: three daughters, Catherine, Doris and Margaret were born of this marriage. Soga died on 6 December 1906 in Amalinda, East London, Eastern Cape.[2]

Early career

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In November 1889 he was appointed as the second assistant to Duncan Hutcheon, Colonial Veterinary Surgeon to the Cape of Good Hope.[11] The first assistant being John Borthwick. He was posted to Fort Beaufort and was also responsible for veterinary services for Victoria East, Stockenström and neighbouring districts. His immediate task was to inoculate against contagious lung-sickness, which was decimating cattle in South Africa. He conducted his own inoculation experiments on lung-sickness and his vaccinating method was accepted as standard thereafter.[2]

Eradication of Rinderpest

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The second phase of his career began when the threat of rinderpest was on the horizon in the early 1890s. To the north, cattle were becoming sick and dying by the thousands. "Like some belated biblical plague of Egypt . . . it left a trail of bleaching bones and poverty," said one historian of that period. Dr. Soga was among the first to warn of the dangers rinderpest posed to the Cape Colony. "Our new Colonial enemy is rinderpest," he wrote in 1892, "Lung Sickness and Redwater are simple fools to it."

Memorial

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The library at the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria was named in his honour on 5 May 2009[12]

Publications

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His publications include:

  • Disease "Nenta" in goats, Pretoria, 1891, hdl:2263/10564{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Stamping out rinderpest, Pretoria, 1896, hdl:2263/13445{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Castration - advocating the method of torsion, Pretoria, 1893, hdl:2263/13453{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Rinderpest, Pretoria, 1892, hdl:2263/13454{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Soga 1983, p. 8.
  2. ^ a b c Heyne 2009.
  3. ^ "Janet Burnside Soga". South African History Online. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  4. ^ Cousins 1899.
  5. ^ "Upcoming documentary on the extraordinary life of South African Dollar FP". Dollar Academy. Retrieved 13 October 2020.
  6. ^ De Beer 1988, p. 169.
  7. ^ Gutsche 1979, p. 24, 296.
  8. ^ MacKenzie & Dalziel 2013.
  9. ^ Lowe n.d.
  10. ^ a b Davis 2015, pp. 20–37.
  11. ^ "Vets Past QRS". National Directorate Veterinary Services. Archived from the original on 8 August 2014. Retrieved 4 August 2014.
  12. ^ "Welcome to the Jotello F Soga Library". Department of Library University of Pretoria. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 7 April 2014.

Sources

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Further reading

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