Veterinary immunology as colonial science: Method and quantification in the investigation of horsesickness in South Africa, c. 1905-1945

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 61, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 26-65

  Gilfoyle, Daniel ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Arnold Theiler; Horsesickness; Immunology; Max Theiler; Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute; Raymond A. Alexander; South Africa; Vaccines; Veterinary medicine

Indexed keywords

VACCINE;

ANIMAL; HISTORY; HORSE; HORSE DISEASE; IMMUNOLOGY; ORGANIZATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; REVIEW; SOUTH AFRICA; VETERINARY MEDICINE; VIROLOGY;

ACADEMIES AND INSTITUTES; AFRICAN HORSE SICKNESS; ALLERGY AND IMMUNOLOGY; ANIMALS; COLONIALISM; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HORSES; SOUTH AFRICA; VACCINES; VETERINARY MEDICINE;

EID: 29144508735     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: 14684373     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrj002     Document Type: Review

References (187)

1. For an overview, see A. C. Brown, ed., A History of Scientific Endeavour in South Africa: A Collection of Essays Published on the Occasion of the Centenary of the Royal Society of South Africa (Cape Town: Royal Society of South Africa, 1977).
2. Saul Dubow, ed., Science and Society in Southern Africa (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 2.
3. Saul Dubow, "A Commonwealth of Science: the British Association in South Africa, 1905 and 1929," in Dubow, Science and Society, p. 77.
4. "African horsesickness (AHS) is caused by an orbivirus (family Reoviridae) of which nine antigenic strains of differing virulence are recognised . . . . African horsesickness virus (AHSV) is transmitted by hematophagous insects (Culicoides spp.), ticks (Hyalomma dromedarii and the brown dog tick Rhipicephalus sanguineus) and mosquitoes (various species in laboratory studies). Midges are by far the most important vector in the spread of the spontaneous disease." Quoted from O. M. Radostits, C. C. Gay, D. C. Blood, and K. W. Hinchcliff, Veterinary Medicine: A Textbook of the Diseases of Cattle, Sheep, Pigs, Goats and Horses (London, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Sydney: W. B. Saunders, 2001), p. 1038.
5. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, Species and Specificity: An Interpretation of the History of Immunology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995);
6. Arthur M. Silverstein, A History of Immunology (San Diego: Academic Press, 1989).
7. Anne Marie Moulin, "Immunology," in Reader's Guide to the History of Science, ed. A. Hessenbruch (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), p. 370.
8. Some recent contributions, however, are Warwick Anderson, "Immunities of Empire: Race, Disease, and the New Tropical Medicine," Bull. Hist. Med., 1996, 70, 94-118;
9. Pauline M. H. Mazumdar, '"In the Silence of the Laboratory': The League of Nations Standardizes Syphilis Tests," Soc. Hist. Med., 2003, 16, 437-59;
10. and Keir Waddington, "To Stamp Out 'So Terrible a Malady': Bovine Tuberculosis and Tuberculin Testing in Britain, 1890-1939," Med. Hist., 2004, 48, 29-48.
11. Colonial science has by now a substantial historiography including, apart from a number of more empirical studies, some significant theoretical writings. See George Basalla, "The Spread of Western Science," Science, 1967, 156, 611-22;
12. Roy MacLeod, "On Visiting the Moving Metropolis: Reflections on the Architecture of Imperial Science," Hist. Records Australian Sci., 1982, 5, 1-16;
13. Ian Inkster, "Scientific Enterprise and the Colonial 'Model': Observations on Australian Experience in Historical Context," Soc. Stud. Sci., 1985, 15, 677-704;
14. David Wade Chambers and Richard Gillespie, "Locality in the History of Science: Colonial Science, Technoscience and Indigenous Knowledge," in Nature and Empire, Science and the Colonial Enterprise, ed. Roy MacLeod, Osiris, 2000, 15, 221-40.
15. Chambers and Gillespie, "Locality in the History of Science," p. 223.
16. Mazumdar, Species and Specificity, p. 10.
17. J. Rosser Matthews, Quantification and the Quest for Medical Certainty (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995).
18. For the history of the Cape's Veterinary Department in the nineteenth century, see William Beinart, The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment, 1770-1950 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003);
19. and Daniel Gilfoyle, "Veterinary Science and Public Policy at the Cape of Good Hope, 1877-1910" (D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 2002).
20. Daniel Gilfoyle, "Veterinary Research and the African Rinderpest Epizootic: The Cape Colony, 1896-1898,"J. So. African Stud., 2003, 29:1, 133-54.
21. Jeremy Krikler, Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below: The Agrarian Transvaal at the Turn of the Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 78 ff.
22. For biographies of Theiler, see Thelma Gutsche, There Was a Man (Cape Town: Howard Timmins, 1979);
23. and Gertrud Theiler, Arnold Theiler (1867-1936): His Life and Times (Pretoria: University of Pretoria, 1971).
24. "Immunity in Tropical and Sub-Tropical Diseases," in Transvaal Department of Agriculture [T.G.35-'09], The Veterinary Bacteriological Laboratories. Issued in Commemoration of the Opening of the New Laboratories at Onderstepoort, Pretoria, October, 1908, pp. 21-51, p. 21.
25. Paul F. Cranefield. Science and Empire: East Coast Fever in Rhodesia and the Transvaal (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991).
26. Karen Brown, "Tropical Medicine and Animal Diseases: Onderstepoort and the Development of Veterinary Science in South Africa, 1908-1950," J. So. African Stud., forthcoming.
27. For a collection of lay accounts of horsesickness, see T. B. Bayley, Notes on the Horse-sickness at the Cape of Good Hope, in 1854-'55: Compiled by Permission of his Excellency the Governor, from Official Documents (Cape Town: Saul Solomon, 1856).
28. Cape of Good Hope [A.73.-'81], Report of the Colonial Veterinary Surgeon on Horsesickness;
29. Duncan Hutcheon, Horse Sickness (Cape Town: Government Printer, 1892);
30. G. Fleming, Reports on African Horse-sickness (Copy in British Library, no details of publisher given, 1888).
31. Dr. Way, "Memorandum on Horsesickness," in Bayley, Notes on the Horsesickness, Appendix, pp. 5-6.
32. Epizootics of horsesickness were reported at the Cape during 1780, 1801, 1819, 1839, 1854, 1872, and 1892.
33. Bayley, Notes on the Horsesickness, p. 41.
34. Petrus J. du Toit, "Horsesickness in 1923," J. Dept. Agric., 1924, 5, 370-82.
35. Arnold Theiler, "South African Horsesickness: History, Geographic and Telluric Conditions," Transvaal Agric. J., 1902, 1:1, 27-34, p. 32.
36. Fleming, Reports on African Horse-sickness, p. 3.
37. Cape of Good Hope [6.73-1896], Reports in Regard to Horses Sent to Mashonaland after Experimental Treatment against Horse Sickness at the Colonial Bacteriological Institute, Graham's Town,
38. Letter from J. A. Stevens, Acting Secretary to the British South Africa Company to Charles Currey, Under-Secretary for Agriculture, pp. 4-5.
39. The British South Africa Company employed Robert Koch to work on a horsesickness vaccination during 1901 and 1902. The government veterinary laboratory at Kabete near Nairobi in Kenya investigated horsesickness in the late 19205.
40. "Important Veterinary Discovery - Horsesickness Immunization," Rand Daily Mail, 27 April 1934.
41. Cranefield, Science and Empire: East Coast Fever in Rhodesia and the Transvaal.
42. Charles E. Gray, Principal Veterinary Surgeon to Colonel Nunn, Principal Veterinary Officer, Army Veterinary Department, Pretoria, 5 October 1905, File 114 A.1400/05, Transvaal Archives Depot, Pretoria (TAD); Petition of Lydenburg Farmers to Sir Arthur Lawley, Lieutenant Governor of the Transvaal, 9 April 1904, File 88 A.505, TAD.
43. Cape of Good Hope [G.5-'94], Report of the Director of the Colonial Bacteriological Institute for the year 1893, pp. 4-5.
44. John MacFadyean headed the Royal Veterinary College, London, and edited the influential J. Camp. Path. Ther.
45. Alexander Edington, "South African Horsesickness: Its Pathology and Methods of Protective Inoculation," J. Comp. Path. Ther., 1900, 13, 200-31 and 281-300;
46. John MacFadyean, "African Horsesickness," J. Comp. Path. Ther., 1900, 13, 1-30;
47. and John MacFadyean, "A Further Contribution to the Pathology of African Horsesickness,"J. Comp. Path. Ther., 1901, 14, 103-18.
48. Lise Wilkinson, "The Development of the Virus Concept as Reflected in Corpora of Studies on Individual Pathogens, 1. Beginnings at the Turn of the Century," Med. Hist., 1974, 18, 211-21, p. 213.
49. John MacFadyean, "The Ultravisible Viruses," J. Comp. Path. Ther., 1908, 21, 58-68, 168-75, 232-42.
50. For an explicit comparison, see Arnold Theiler and Charles E. Gray, "Veterinary Hygienic Principles Applicable to Stock in South Africa," Transvaal Agric. J., 1906, 5, 378-94, p. 381.
51. Watkins-Pitchford found that horses kept in gauzed boxes were protected, while others left outside became infected. Herbert Watkins-Pitchford, First and Second Interim Reports on Horsesickness (Pietermaritzburg: Times Printing and Publishing, 1903), pp. 7-8.
52. Thomas M. Rivers, ed., Virus Diseases (London: Bailliere, Tindall, and Cox, 1928), p. 5.
53. Arnold Theiler, "The Advance of our Knowledge Concerning the Stock Diseases of South Africa," Transvaal Agric. J., 1905, 4, 69-80, pp. 70-71.
54. With the exception of East Coast fever, all the diseases scheduled under the Union's Stock Diseases Act of 1911 were classified as contagious or infectious, for example, glanders, rabies, tuberculosis, and bovine pleuro-pneumonia.
55. By the end of the nineteenth century, several animal vaccines were already in use. Vaccination against the bacterial diseases anthrax and blackquarter was practiced on a large scale in parts of Europe and America. More immediately, prophylactic inoculation against rinderpest (cattle plague) had been used widely in South Africa between 1897 and 1902. See Gilfoyle, "Veterinary Research and the African Rinderpest Epizootic: The Cape Colony, 1896-1898."
56. Gutsche, There Was a Man, pp. 109 ff.
57. Theiler, however, did not use the terms "antigen" and "antibody." He tended to use "virus" to denote the infective substance or agent. In referring to the substance in the blood created during the immune response, he used terms derived from Paul Ehrlich, particularly "amboceptor." For a detailed account of the technique used for rinderpest immunization, see Gilfoyle, "Veterinary Research, " pp. 139-46.
58. Cape of Good Hope [G.67-'98], Report on the Cure and Prevention of Rinderpest, Based on Experiments Performed at the Rinderpest Experimental Station, Kimberley, and Elsewhere, from April 1897, to April 1898, pp. 39-41.
59. Serum treatment against diphtheria began to be used widely in hospitals in western Europe during the 18905, albeit with uneven results. In Koch's Berlin laboratory, Behring and Kitasato found that the blood serum of individuals recovered from diphtheria contained a neutralizing antitoxin that could be used to cure or protect susceptible individuals. Methods of producing diphtheria antitoxin by injecting immune horses with increasing amounts of the bacterial toxin were developed during the 1890s. This appeared to be a promising line of research for the treatment of other "germ" diseases, even if they were not caused by toxins. For an account of diphtheria research, see Paul Weindling, "From Medical Research to Clinical Practice: Serum Therapy for Diphtheria in the 1890s," in Medical Innovation in Historical Perspective, ed. John V. Pickstone (New York: St Martin's Press, 1992), pp. 72-84;
60. Silverstein, History of Immunology, pp. 49-51;
61. and Arthur M. Silverstein, Paul Ehrlich's Receptor Immunology: The Magnificent Obsession (San Diego: Academic Press, 2002), pp. 41-42.
62. Theiler, "The Advance of our Knowledge," p. 73.
63. Similar approaches were attempted unsuccessfully by Robert Koch, who was investigating horsesickness for the government of Southern Rhodesia in 1903. Charles E. Gray, Southern Rhodesia: Report of the Chief Veterinary Surgeon on Horsesickness (Salisbury: Government Printer, 1904).
64. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1903-1904, pp. 131-32. Both Edington and MacFadyean had already established the long-term infectivity of horsesickness blood.
65. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report for 1905-06, "Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist," pp. 83-84.
66. Charles E. Gray, Principal Veterinary Surgeon, Transvaal to the Secretary, Transvaal Land Owner's Association, 24 October 1905, File 121 A.1408/05, TAD;
67. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1904-05, pp. 75-76.
68. Transvaal Government Notice No. 1014 of 1905, "Immunisation of Mules against Horsesickness," 23 November 1905. The districts involved were Pretoria, Lydenburg, Piet Rerief, Barberton, Middelburg, Nylstroom, and Zeerust. Theiler required a 30 shilling deposit, approximately 10 percent of the average value of a horse.
69. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report for 1905-06, "Report of the Principal Veterinary Surgeon," p. 61; Transvaal Government Notice No. 1014 of 1905;
70. Theiler and Gray, "Veterinary Hygienic Principles," p. 384.
71. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1905-06, pp. 168-72.
72. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report for 1905-06, "Report of the Principal Veterinary Surgeon," p. 61.
73. See, for example, Way, "Memorandum on Horsesickness," p. 15;
74. Fleming, Reports on African Horsesickness, p. 15;
75. and Arnold Theiler, "South African Horsesickness: History, Geographical and Tellurical Conditions," Transvaal Agric. J., 1902, 1, 27-34, p. 32-
76. Theiler, "The Advance of our Knowledge," p. 72.
77. Theiler used the concept of "virus" somewhat ambiguously. Sometimes he meant an infective substance or material generally, for example, the infective blood of a sick animal. More specifically, however, he used it in the sense of a pathogenic micro-organism that was too small to be detected through the microscope, that is, according to John MacFadyean's definition (see above, footnotes 34 and 35). Veterinary scientists in South Africa, however, continued to use "virus" in the more general sense. In the 19405, they still occasionally referred to the "virus" of anthrax, even though they were, of course, aware that anthrax was a bacterial disease. For a discussion of the development of the concept of the virus, see Sally Smith Hughes, The Virus: A History of the Concept (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1977).
78. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1905-1906, p. 163.
79. Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1905-1906, Ibid., p. 167.
80. Arnold Theiler, Government Veterinary Bacteriologist to Government Veterinary Surgeons, Circular, "Immunisation of Mules Against Horse Sickness," 22 September 1906, File 114 A.1400/06, TAD.
81. Arnold Theiler, Government Veterinary Bacteriologist to Director of Agriculture, Transvaal, 21 June 1907, File 120 A.1406/14, TAD;
82. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1906-07, pp. 85-86;
83. Arnold Theiler to Government Veterinary Surgeons, 10 May 1907, File 115 A. 1400/1, TAD; Arnold Theiler to Government Veterinary Surgeons, 15 January 1908, File 115 A.1400/1, TAD.
84. The full list was Ordinary, Tzaneen, Bulawayo, Piet Retief, Pietersburg, and Warmbaths. These experiments were on a substantial scale, involving the treatment of 400 mules and 88 horses.
85. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report for 1906-07, pp. 100-1.
86. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1903-04, p. 165;
87. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1904-05, p. 122.
88. Jules Bordet of the Pasteur Institute opposed Ehrlich's account of the immune response. Bordet argued that complement (or alexin, in his terminology) did not combine with antibody, but that antibody sensitized the pathogen, that was then acted upon by alexin. For an account of the controversy between Ehrlich and Bordet on the mechanisms of lysis, see Silverstein, A History of Immunology, pp. 64-66.
89. This summary is derived from Hans Zinsser, A Textbook of Bacteriology (New York and London: D. Appleton, 1928), pp. 277-82.
90. For a detailed recent account of Ehrlich's "side-chain" theory, see Silverstein, Paul Ehrlich's Receptor Immunology, pp. 77-86.
91. For the rise of the theory of specificity and Paul Ehrlich's theory of the specificity of the immune response, see Mazumdar, Species and Specificity, especially chapters 3 and 5.
92. For contemporary arguments on the nature and function of antibodies, see Alberto Cambrosio, Daniel Jacobi, and Peter Keating, "Ehrlich's 'Beautiful Pictures' and the Controversial Beginnings of Immunological Imagery," Isis, 1993, 84, 662-99, pp. 666-71.
93. For an evaluation of Ehrlich's theory published in the late 1920s, see H. Zinsser, A Textbook of Bacteriology, p. 241.
94. Mazumdar, Species and Specificity, p. 10.
95. For a contemporary account of Ehrlich's method of testing diphtheria antitoxin, see George Dean, "The Formation of Antitoxin in the Body," in George H. F. Nuttall and George S. Graham-Smith, The Bacteriology of Diphtheria (London: Cambridge University Press, 1908), pp. 500-37, pp. 520-23.
96. Mazumdar, "In the Silence of the Laboratory," p. 439.
97. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist, 1903-1904, p. 131.
98. Ton van Helvoort has argued that a bacteriological paradigm continued to inform research into viral diseases during the first half of the twentieth century. T. van Helvoort, "A Bacteriological Paradigm in Influenza Research in the First Half of the Twentieth Century," Hist. Phil. Life Sci., 1993, 15, 3-21.
99. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist, 1904-1905, pp. 121-22. Following Ehrlich's terminology, Theiler referred to antibody as "amboceptor."
100. Theiler's first mention of strain is in Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1906-07, p. 163.
101. Transvaal Department of Agriculture [T.G. 4-'09], Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture. 1st July, 1907, to 30th June, 1908, p. 68.
102. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1906-07, pp. 89ff.
103. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Annual Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1906-07, p. 161.
104. Sometimes "strain" was used merely to refer to a particular sample of infective material, identified by a place, personal name, or number.
105. Transvaal [T.G. 27-'08], Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture, 1st July, 1906, to 30th June, 1907, pp. 101-2.
106. The list was Ordinary, Tzaneen, Bulawayo, Lydenburg, Warmbaths, and Piet Relief. The names reflect the place from which the strain was obtained.
107. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1907-08, p. 24.
108. Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1906-07, p. 205.
109. Arnold Theiler to C. H. Zeederberg, Government Mail Contractor, 6 February 1907, File 124 A.1415/12, TAD.
110. Transvaal Department of Agriculture [T.G.4-'09], Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture, 1st July 1907, to 30th June, 1908, p. 70.
111. On the way in which experimental systems serve a heuristic purpose, see Arthur M. Silverstein, "The Heuristic Value of Experimental Systems," J. Hist. Bio., 1994, 27, 437-47.
112. Transvaal Department of Agriculture [T.G.35-'09], The Veterinary Bacteriological Laboratories. Issued in Commemoration of the Opening of the New Laboratories at Onderstepoort, Pretoria, October, 1908, p. 30.
113. Transvaal Department of Agriculture [T.G.4-'09], Report of the Transvaal Department of Agriculture, 1st July 1907, to 30th June, 1908, p. 67.
114. G. Lichtenheld, "Preliminary Communication on the Fixing of Complement in Horse-sickness and East Coast Fever," in Transvaal Department of Agriculture, Report of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist for the Year 1909-10, p. 172.
115. Petrus J. du Toit (1888-1967) was born at Somerset Strand in the Western Cape. He was actively involved in the Afrikaans language movement while studying zoology at Victoria College (later the University of Stellenbosch). Subsequently, he studied in Germany and Switzerland and in 1912 was awarded die degree of D.Phil, in zoology at the University of Zurich. He took the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Berlin in 1916. In spite of holding a British passport, he worked, during the First World War, at the Veterinary Hochschule, publishing a major textbook on tropical diseases of domestic animals in collaboration with Professor Paul Knuth in 1921. He returned to South Africa to take up a post at Onderstepoort in 1919 and succeeded Arnold Theiler as director in 1928, a post that he held until his retirement in 1948. While directing research at Onderstepoort, teaching at the Veterinary Faculty of the University of Pretoria, and participating in international science organizations, du Toit published many important contributions in the fields of tropical diseases, immunology, and nutrition. D. G. Kingwill and B. J. F. Schonland, "Petrus Johannes du Toit 1888-1967," Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1969, 15, 247-66.
116. Du Toit, "Horsesickness in 1923."
117. Raymond A. Alexander, "Canine Distemper with Particular Reference to Immunization: A Review,"J. So. African Med. Vet. Assoc., 1933, 4, 71-88, pp. 71-74.
118. P. P. Laidlaw and G. W. Dunkin, "Studies in Dog Distemper, IV. The Immunisation of Ferrets against Dog Distemper," J. Comp. Path. Ther., 1927, 41, 1-17, pp. 2-3.
119. Gutsche, There Was a Man, p. 406.
120. This method was apparently suggested to Theiler by his reading of earlier work on the herpes virus by Andervont. Max Theiler, "Studies on the Action of Yellow Fever Virus in Mice," Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol., 1930, 24, 249-72, p. 250.
121. Theiler demonstrated that the virus had become "neutropic" in mice and was found in significant concentrations in the central nervous system only. Theiler, "Studies on the Action of Yellow Fever," p. 263.
122. Max Theiler, "Neutralisation Tests with Immune Yellow Fever Sera and a Strain of Yellow Fever Virus Adapted to Mice," Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol., 1931, 25, 69-77, p. 73.
123. A virus was thought to have become "fixed" for a particular species when the incubation period, duration, and course of the disease stabilized after a series of passages. In practice, "fixation" was reached when the average incubation period, etc., became stable. It did not, however, mean that the course of the disease was constant in every case.
124. Theiler took the "normal course" of the disease to last between four and ten days from injection. Max Theiler, "A Yellow Fever Protection Test in Mice by Intracerebral Injection," Ann. Trop. Med. Parasitol., 1933, 27, 57-78, pp. 59-60.
125. The term was taken from chemistry, in which it meant the determination of the amount of a constituent in a compound by observing the amount of a standard solution required to convert it into a different compound.
126. Theiler, "A Yellow Fever Protection Test," p. 60.
127. At this stage in Theiler's work, this would have been the blood serum of a human who had recently recovered from yellow fever.
128. W. A. Sawyer and Wray Lloyd, "The Use of Mice in Tests of Immunity Against Yellow Fever," J. Experiment. Med., 1931, 54, 533-55.
129. Theiler, "A Yellow Fever Protection Test," pp. 63-75.
130. On the importance of standardization in immunization and testing, see Silverstein, Paul Ehrlich's Receptor Immunology, pp. 41-43;
131. and Mazumdar, "In the Silence of the Laboratory," pp. 444-45.
132. Raymond Albert Alexander (1899-1965) was born in Benoni in the South African Republic. He took the degree of Bachelor of Veterinary Science at the University of Pretoria in 1925. Subsequently he enjoyed a distinguished career at Onderstepoort, where he was appointed Director of Veterinary Services in 1950, a post that he held until 1961. He is most famous for his work on vaccines against horsesickness (for which he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science in 1935) and bluetongue. Wilhelm O. D. M. Neitz (1906-1979) was born in Potgietersrus, South Africa. He studied at Onderstepoort and took the degree of Bachelor of Veterinary Science in 1929 and Doctor of Veterinary Science in 1945. Neitz made many contributions in virology and protozoology, becoming an authority on bluetongue and theileriosis. Rudolph D. Bigalke, Veterinary History Committee of the South African Veterinary Association, "Neitz, Wilhelm Otto Daniel Martin," 20 May 2001. Manuscript given to the author by R. D. Bigalke.
133. Petrus J. du Toit and Raymond A. Alexander, "The Immunisation of Horses Against Horsesickness by the Use of Formalized Virus," Union of South Africa, 16th Report of the Director of Veterinary Services and Animal Industry, pp. 85-86;
134. Petrus J. du Toit, Raymond A. Alexander, and Wilhelm O. Neitz, "The Immunization of Horses with Formalysed Horsesickness Virus. Part II," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1933, 1, 25-40.
135. du Toit, Alexander, and Neitz, "The Immunization of Horses with Formalysed Horsesickness Virus," pp. 25, 37-38.
136. Raymond A. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, 1. Neurotropic Fixation," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1935, 4, 291-322, pp. 291-92;
137. R. A. Alexander, "Preliminary Note on the Infection of White Mice and Guinea Pigs with the Virus of Horse-sickness," J. So. African Vet. Med. Assoc., 1933, 4, 1-9, p. 1.
138. "20449" was the laboratory record number of the horse from which the strain was collected.
139. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, 1," p. 294.
140. Alexander established a breeding program in order to minimize genetic variation in the mice that were used for the experiments.
141. Alexander, "Preliminary Note on the Infection," p. 7.
142. Raymond A. Alexander and Petrus J. du Toit, "The Immunization of Horses and Mules Against Horsesickness by Means of the Neurotropic Virus of Mice and Guinea Pigs," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1935, 2, 375-92, p. 375.
143. Alexander ran experiments on guinea pigs and mice in tandem until it was realized that the concentration of virus was greater in the brain of the mouse.
144. Alexander and du Toit, "The Immunization of Horses and Mules," p. 379.
145. Alexander and du Toit, "The Immunization of Horses and Mules,", Ibid., pp. 387-91.
146. B. van der Vyver to Raymond A. Alexander, 7 September 1933, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, Archive of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, Onderstepoort (AOVI).
147. Raymond A. Alexander and B. van der Vyver, "Field Experiments with Neurotropic Vaccine During the Season 1933-34," J. So. African Vet. Med. Assoc., 1933, 6, 33-38, pp. 35-37.
148. Alexander successfully submitted his study on horsesickness to the University of South Africa as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Science.
149. Raymond A. Alexander and John H. Mason, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, VII. Transmitted Immunity," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1941, 16, 19-32, p. 30.
150. In the early stages of the experiments, Alexander found that mice varied in susceptibility, but he overcame this difficulty by inbreeding a single "strain" of mice.
151. These determinations were not exact, but duration in horsesickness was, fortuitously, more consistent than in yellow fever. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, I," pp. 293, 300, 314;
152. Raymond A. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, III. The Intracerebral Protection Test and its Application to the Study of Immunity," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1935, 4, 349-77, p. 350.
153. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, III," p. 353.
154. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, III,", Ibid., p. 351.
155. Raymond A. Alexander, Wilhelm O. Neitz, and Petrus J. du Toit, "Horsesickness: Immunization of Horses and Mules in the Field During the Season 1934-35, with a Description of the Technique of Preparation of Polyvalent Mouse Neurotropic Vaccine," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1936, 7, 17-30, p. 27.
156. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, III," p. 364.
157. Alexander and Mason, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, VII," pp. 19-32.
158. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, III," p. 375.
159. Alexander, Neitz, and du Toit, "Horsesickness: Immunization," pp. 18-19.
160. Raymond A. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, V. The Antigenic Response of Horses to Simultaneous Trivalent Immunization," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1936, 7, 11-16, p. 16.
161. Alexander et al., "Horsesickness: Immunization," p. 21.
162. Alexander et al., "Horsesickness: Immunization,", Ibid., p. 28.
163. Horsesickness: Immunization, Ibid., pp. 26-27. Mortality was reported to have been concentrated in the Gluckstad-Swart Umfolosi ward. For a detailed report by the vet responsible for vaccination in Vryheid, see Government Veterinary Officer (GVO), Vryheid to Director of Veterinary Services (DVS), Onderstepoort, 6 February 1935, 15 February 1935, and Senior Veterinary Officer (SVO) to DVS, 15 June 1935, box 22, file 4/3/6, AOVI.
164. "Strange Fatal Disease - Natives Suffer after Horsesickness," Sunday Times, 6 May 1934.
165. Raymond A. Alexander to the Editor, Farmers' Weekly, 16 April 1937, box 5, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI.
166. Alexander, Neitz, and du Toit, "Horsesickness: Immunization," pp. 22, 28; GVO, De Aar to DVS, Onderstepoort, 17 April 1939, box 20, file 4/3/3/2/1, AOVI.
167. E. A. Galpin, Naboomspruit to DVS, Onderstepoort, 6 April 1937, box 22, file 4/3/6, AOVI; Raymond A. Alexander, DVS, Onderstepoort to E. A. Galpin, Naboomspruit, 28 April 1937, box 22, file 4/3/6, AOVI.
168. Raymond A. Alexander to the Editor, Farmers' Weekly, 16 April 1937, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI;
169. DVS to the Editor, Die Vaderland, 18 February 1937, box 21, file 4/3/5; DVS to Director of Animal and Crop Production, 18 June 1945, box 21, file 4/3/3/2/2/1, AOVI.
170. Petrus J. du Toit to R. Daubney, Chief Veterinary Research Officer, Kenya, 6 November 1935, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI; Lawrence, DVS, Southern Rhodesia to DVS, Onderstepoort, 20 May 1935, box 20, file 4/3/3/2, AOVI; Raymond A. Alexander to R. Reisinger, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Addis Ababa, 12 January 1949, box 6, file 1/4/14/6, AOVI.
171. P. J. J. Fourie, for DVS, Onderstepoort to S. K. de Klerk, Schweiser Reneke, 22 August 1934, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI.
172. Raymond A. Alexander to Petrus J. du Toit, DVS, Onderstepoort, 6 November 1942, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI; P. J. du Toit, DVS to Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, 29 October 1943, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI.
173. F. Coetsee to DVS, Onderstepoort, 10 January 1944, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI.
174. Frank M. Burnet, "The Use of the Developing Egg in Virus Research," Privy Council Medical Research Council, Special Report Series, No. 22, pp. 1-58;
175. Raymond A. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, VI. Propagation in the Developing Chick Embryo," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1938, 11:1, 9.
176. Alexander, "Studies on the Neurotropic Virus of Horsesickness, VI," "Addendum," pp. 18-19.
177. Director of Veterinary Research, Kenya to DVS, Onderstepoort, 27 August 1934, box 20, file 4/3/3/2/2, AOVI;
178. Petrus J. du Toit to Chief Veterinary Research Officer, Kenya, 27 May 1935, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI;
179. Raymond A. Alexander, "The 1944 Epizootic of Horsesickness in the Middle East," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1948, 23, 77-92.
180. Office International des Epizootics, Information Note No. 163
181. (b), "Evolution of Control of Horsesickness in the Middle East and South Asia," 19 August 1960, box 20, file 4/3/3/2/1, AOVI.
182. A. Polson, "The Particle Size of African Horsesickness Virus as Determined by Ultrafiltration and Ultracentrifugation," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1941, 16, 33-50;
183. A. Polson, "The Diffusion Constant and Molecular Weight and Shape of Neurotropic Horsesickness Virus," Onderstepoort J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Industry, 1947, 22:1, 41-50.
184. See, for example, C. J. van Zyl to DVS, 18 March 1936, AOVI, box 21, file 4/3/3/2/2/1, AOVI; Snyman, GVO to DVS, Onderstepoort, 9 January 1935, box 6, file 1/4/1/4/6, AOVI; G. H. Grobler to GVO, Kroonstad, 13 November 1934, box 21, file 4/3/3/2/2/1, AOVI; and interview with Baltus Erasmus, Pretoria, March 2003.
185. Alexander et al., "Horsesickness: Immunization of Horses and Mules," pp. 25-26.
186. K. M. Pavri and C. R. Anderson, "Isolation of Vaccine Strain of African Horsesickness Virus from Brains of Two Horses Given Polyvalent Vaccine," In. J. Vet. Sci. Anim. Husbandry, 1963, 33, 215-19.
187. Petrus J. du Toit, DVS, Onderstepoort to Secretary, Jockey Club of South Africa, 20 June 1947, box 20, file 4/3/1, AOVI.