Philippine Veterinary Medical Association - Quezon City, Philippines

Year 1888 marked the era when veterinary medicine started to make an impact in the Philippines. It was in this year that a group of health professionals was commissioned by Don Benigno Quiroga y Ballesteros, the Director General de Administracion Civil de Filipinas to investigate the Rinderpest Epizootic. This was headed by an army veterinarian Don Gines Geis y Gotzens and composed of the Director of the Laboratorio Municipal de Manila, Don Anacleto del Rosario y Sales, a pharmacist and for public health purposes, a physician Don Francisco Masip. The disease brought by animals imported from Indo China and Hongkong disseminated the cattle and carabao population by December 1988. Steamship captains plying the river between Manila and Bulacan reported that dead animals were clogging the waterways.