In Appreciation: Dr. M.
Donald McGavin
After working tirelessly and metic-
ulously over the last three decades
as an editor and a contributor,
Dr. McGavin has chosen to step
down from these roles and their
demands to pursue other interests.
It is an honor and a privilege to
recognize him for his leadership
role in the evolution of this book
as well as for his sustained edito-
rial and creative contributions to
its philosophical style and infor-
mative and illustrative materials.
His contributions include coau-
thoring Chapter 1, Cellular Adaptations, Injury, and Death: Mor-
phologic, Biochemical, and Genetic Bases; Chapter 13, Bone Marrow,
Blood Cells, and the Lymphatic System; and Chapter 15, Skeletal
Muscle in the fifth edition. Moreover, he authored an appendix,
Photographic Techniques in Veterinary Pathology, that provides detailed
information on the proper methods to obtain the best photo-
graphic images from gross and histologic pathology specimens for
the use in teaching, research, and publications. Additionally, in
every edition, he served as a “hands-on” editor and assisted chapter
contributors in organizing and revising the written elements of
their chapters, as well as the figures and figure legends and ensur-
ing that the complex field of veterinary nomenclature was used
correctly within these components.
Dr. McGavin received his veterinary degree from the Uni-
versity of Queensland in 1952. He had been awarded a scholar-
ship from the Queensland Department of Agriculture and, in
return for the payment of tuition, he was required to serve in
outback and rural areas for 6 years after graduation. In 1953,
he was posted to Townsville, Queensland (a tropical area) as a
field officer and worked with field investigations into tuberculosis,
babesiosis, and mortalities from poisonous plants in beef cattle.
In 1954, he was transferred to the Animal Health Station at
Oonoonba, a small veterinary diagnostic laboratory outside of
Townsville. As there was no histologic support in the laboratory,
he learned to prepare his own histologic slides. This “on-the-job
training” gave him an appreciation and empathy for histotechni-
cians preparing histologic sections, especially under tropical con-
ditions without air conditioning and with the problems they
encountered with routine fixation, processing, and staining of
tissues. Additionally, Dr. McGavin was deeply appreciative of
the mentoring he received early in his career from medical
pathologists at the University of Queensland Medical School
and Townsville General Hospital.
From 1956 to 1961, he was a diagnostic pathologist at the
Animal Research Institute in Yeerongpilly, Brisbane, a superior vet-
erinary diagnostic and research laboratory, fully staffed to provide
bacteriologic, toxicologic, biochemical, parasitologic, and histologic
support. Here, he completed neuropathologic studies of experimen-
tal Cycad poisoning, which produced ataxia in cattle from “dying
x
back” in the spinal cord. To accomplish this goal, he developed a
facility with special neurological stains such as the Marchi, silver
stains such as the Sevier-Munger and Nauta and Gygax for nervous
tissue, and Gordon and Sweets’ reticulum stain. In parallel with this
investigation, he also earned a Diploma in Photography from the
Central Technical College, Brisbane to aid in black-and-white pho-
tomicrography and gross specimen photography.
He received a Fulbright Student Travel Grant in 1961 and
was accepted into the graduate program in veterinary pathology
at Michigan State University. For the next 3 years, he conducted
experiments on the pathogenicity of what were then termed “atypi-
cal mycobacteria” (chiefly Mycobacterium avium-intracellulare)
in cattle. He passed the examination to become a diplomate of
the American College of Veterinary Pathologists in 1963 and was
awarded a PhD in Veterinary Pathology in May 1964. He and
his family returned to Brisbane, Australia; however, within a year
he received invitations to return to the United States. After
meeting stringent immigration requirements, he arrived in the
United States in 1968 and began a faculty position at Kansas
State University where he remained until 1976. During this period,
he was involved in the pathology of several animal models includ-
ing ovine progressive muscular dystrophy and sheep with congenital
defects in the excretion of bilirubin (Gilbert’s syndrome in mutant
Southdown sheep and Dubin-Johnson syndrome in mutant Cor-
riedale sheep).
In 1976, he accepted an invitation to be a foundation faculty
member of the College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Ten-
nessee as a full professor and remained there until retirement in
2002. During his tenure, he served as a foundation author for Special
Veterinary Pathology, the first edition (1988) of this book, and as a
coeditor on the second edition and senior editor on the third
edition. He then served as senior editor for Pathologic Basis of Veteri-
nary Disease (fourth edition) and as coeditor on the fifth edition. He
also was a member of the Examination Committee of the American
College of Veterinary Pathologists from 1975 to 1978 and Chairman
of the Anatomic Pathology section in 1978; an Associate Editor
(1983 to 1988) and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Veterinary Pathol-
ogy from 1989 to 1993; a member of the Editorial Board of Veterinary
Dermatology from 2002 to 2006; and a consultant on design of
autopsy facilities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, and the
United States. In 1988, in collaboration with Dr. S.W. Thompson,
he published a book on gross specimen photography, Specimen
Dissection and Photography (Springfield, IL, Charles C. Thomas
publisher).
From 1990 to 2001, he was a member of the Faculty of Discus-
sants of the Charles L. Davis DVM Foundation and lectured in the
United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and Australia
on the response of muscle to injury, photomicrography, and gross
specimen photography. He received the Distinguished Lecturer
Award from the Davis Foundation in 2008. In 1998, he was elected
Fellow of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists and in
2011 a Distinguished Member of the American College of Veteri-
nary Pathologists.

Through these experiences, Dr. McGavin acquired his expertise
in the practice of veterinary medicine, livestock disease outbreaks
and losses, poisonous plants, histotechnology, diagnostic veterinary
medicine, and veterinary pathology. He has personally observed,
diagnosed, treated, and photographed diseases that for many have
only been experienced by reading descriptions or viewing pho-
tographs in textbooks. Most importantly, Dr. McGavin was able
to make the transition from practitioner to educator. He recog-
nized and was challenged by the educational processes in vet-
erinary curricula and veterinary pathology and sought to develop
In Appreciation: Dr. M. Donald McGavin xi
and implement new teaching methods to transmit information
to students emphasizing the response of the tissue to injury and
the sequence of these changes. As a consequence of the progres-
sion of his life experiences, Dr. McGavin has made Pathologic
Basis of Veterinary Disease a leading textbook in veterinary
pathology.
Lastly, Dr. McGavin is a kind, generous, and humorous man,
willing to share his experiences and expertise selflessly to make this
textbook a success. Therefore it is to Dr. McGavin we dedicate the
sixth edition of Pathologic Basis of Veterinary Disease.