About INDIAN VETERINARY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The Imperial Bacteriological Laboratory (IBL) established at Pune in 1889, was first led by Dr Alfred Lingard, as In-charge of the laboratory in 1890. Two years later, it was felt that handling highly infectious micro-organisms and pathological materials in a densely populated city like Pune is hazardous. Consequently, the laboratory was shifted in 1893 to an isolated site amidst the dense conifer forest of Mukteswar in the Kumaon hills of United Province located at about 1500 m above the mean sea level. Cattle plague or rinderpest was the most devastating disease in those days and the institute gave top priority for controlling this deadly disease. In fact, the first batch of anti-rinderpest serum was produced in 1899.