GOODBYE TO PROFESSOR RAYMOND DART

*
By his successor, Phillip V  Tobias

“A man to whom it has been given to bless the world with a great 
creative idea has no need for the praise of posterity. His very achieve­
m ent has already conferred a higher boon upon him.

“ Yet it is good-indced, it is indispensable -  that representatives 
of all who strive for truth and knowledge should ... bear witness that 
even in these tim es of ours, when political passion and brute force 
hang like swords over the anguished and fearful heads of men, the 
standard of o u r ideal search for truth is Being held aloft undim m ed.’’

T hese words were uttered by A lbert Einstein at a M emorial 
Service for Max Planck. They a re  germane to this tribute to the 
towering personality of Raymond A rth u r D art.

W hat words can one find which will do justice to a man who was 
at once anatom ist, philosopher, anthropologist, physician, historian, 
teacher, actor, man of action, guide, m entor, fount of inspiration, 
friend and father-figure? F o r such a man was R aym ond Dart. His 
was a life of pioneering ventures that started when he was in the 
cradle and continued to his old age. Indeed his first voyage of 
exploration occurred when, as a newborn babe, he floated with liis 
m o th e r out of a second-storey bedroom  during the great Q u e e n ­
sland flood of 1893.

Young Raymond was a pioneer student and scholarship w inner 
when he en tered  the newly-founded University of Q ueensland at 
Brisbane in 1911. A fter com pleting Bachelor of Science and H o n ­
ou rs degrees, he entered the Sydney Medical School. W hile taking 
his medical degree, he fell u nder the spell of Professor J T  ( “Jum m y”) 
Wilson, the H ead o f the D e partm ent of Anatomy. This began his 
lifelong love affair with A natom y and Physical A nthropology. His 
service in the Australian Army Medical C orps during W orld W ar I 
(1918-1919), his intellectual experiences as a newly-demobilised 
young lecturer u n d e r Elliot Smith at University College, I^ondon 
(1919-1922), his adventures in the U SA  as one of the first two 
Foreign Fellows of the R ockerfeller Foundation (1921-1922) -  all 
paved the way for his appointm ent to the C hair of A natom y at the 
U niversity of the W itw atersrand from January 1923. It was a month 
before he would reach his 30th birthday.

Professor D art filled the C hair of A natom y for no less than 36 
years. F o r 18 of these years he served concurrently a D ean of the 
Faculty of Medicine. For 15 years he was the University's re p re ­
sentative on the S A  Medical and D ental Council and lie was a 
m em ber of the S A  Nursing Council from its inception in 1944 until 
1951. H e gave 15 years’ lab o u r as a m em ber o f the board of the S A 
Institute fo r Medical Research. Among many o th e r public service 
com m itm ents, he was a m em ber of the Loram  Com mission which 
enquired into the establishm ent of medical training facilities for black 
stu d en ts in South Africa (1927-1928).

This list of the indefatigable D a rt's services is far from com plete. 
H e was an officer in the SA Field A m bulance and later he c o m ­
m anded the Officers' Training C orps Field A m bulance of W its 
University. At various times he was president of the SA Society of 
Physiotherapists, the Associated Scientific and Technical Societies of 
SA, the SA Association for the A dvancem ent of Science. H e ushered 
in far-reaching developm ents such as the first university courses in 
physiotherapy and occupational therapy, diplom a courses for Sister 
T utors, university diplom ata in Public H ealth, T ropical M edicine 
and Hygiene, Psychological Medicine, and M aster of Surgery c o u rs­
es. H e catalysed the establishm ent of a D ental Faculty at Wits; 
encouraged comm unity ventures such as the V rededorp and Alex­
a ndra Township health and family centres; and helped medical

s tu d e n ts' cultural am enities, student periodicals and social service 
ventures. His pioneering initiatives pervade alm ost every aspect of 
his medical school and many threads in the w arp and w oof of South 
African medicine.

T hroughout his 36 years at M edical School he proved him self to 
be a m aker of men. W hether by direct tuition, o r by example, 
w hether by inspiration or intellectual ferm ent, D a rt's charism atic 
effect on countless students, research w orkers and staff m em bers 
was surely one o f his enduring and m ost puissant qualities. T he tally 
of his form er medical, therapy, science and honours students, and 
staff mem bers, includes num erous medical scientists and a n th ro p o ­
logists of high international repute.

All of these distinguished accom plishm ents are eclipsed, in the 
dom ain of science, by his rem arkable c o n tributions to o u r knowledge 
of m an's place in N ature and his evolution. W hile not yet 32 years 
old, he was responsible for uncovering and appraising the Taung 
skull. It was the first-to-be-found of all of A frica's now m ultitudinous 
early hom inid fossils. T he prom inent A m erican journal Scicncc 84 
included the Taung discovery and what D a rt m ade o f it, as one of 
" t h e  20 sc ie n tific  d is c o v e rie s  th a t s h a p e d  th e  2 0 th  c e n tu r y " . It 
brought controversy and con tra rie ty  to R aym ond D art, echoes of 
which still awaken periodically. He was well before his tim e in claim ­
ing that this sm all-brained c re a tu re  walked upright and was close to 
hum ankind's earliest ancestors. It was a notion that was som e 25 
years ahead of its time.

It was typical of D art to be bold, imaginative, indeed fearless, in 
standing out against the acknowledged crow ned heads of world 
science. D espite d o ubts and queryings, opposition and disregard, he 
lived to see his claims vindicated and well-nigh universally accepted. 
Well on in his fifties, he added im portantly to the African evidence 
through the researches he led at M akapansgat. H e saw his colleagues 
and erstw hile students adding im m easurably to the stockpile of 
Africa's fossil treasures. Above all, he saw his brainchild acknow ­
ledged as one of the earliest Prim ates to em b ark  upon the hum anis­
ing c h a n g e  t h a t  u ltim a te ly  s p a w n e d  th e  s p e c ie s  h o m o  s a p ie n s, 
m odern man.

T o few men of the 20th century, in this o r  any o th e r country, has 
it been given so greatly to expand the frontiers of hum anity’s u n d e r­
standing of itself and its origins.

T he constraints of space scarcely allow m e to do justice to his 
personality and preclude m ention of num erous o th e r contributions 
of R aym ond D art. His stim ulating spirit was the m ost m em orable 
feature of the im pact he m ade on those a bout him. H is research 
students will rem em ber his vivid a tte m p ts to  inculcate into them  
linguistic and verbal skills; and science class sem inars becam e a 
training-ground fo r good public speaking as well as c lear thinking.

It would be wrong to dwell inordinately upon the fame, the 
honour and the glory of R aym ond D a rt. F o r he was the most human 
of hum an beings, the most gentle and genial; the w arm th of his smile 
will always be carried in the m em ory. D eep  com passion was the very 
stuff of his outlook and he was capable of great and abiding love.

Grow ing old gracefully, P rofessor D a rt fulfilled C ice ro ’s ideal: for 
this was a man who grew old in body, but never in mind. F o r him, old 
age was the crown of life, o u r play’s last act. His enthusiasm  rem ained 
undim m ed; his zest for ideas undiluted.

W e are all the p o o re r for his having died; we and countless others 
are the richer for his having lived.

A  tribute to Professor Dart who was instrumental in ensuring that 
Physiotherapy was accepted as integral departments at Universities in 

South Africa -  E ditor ♦

* Head, Department o f  A n a to m y  (1959-1990) 
University o f  the WtMatersrand, Johannesburg

Physiotherapy, November 1991 Vol 41 no 4 Page 71

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