Wilkinson, L

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Medical Historyhttp://journals.cambridge.org/MDHAdditional services for Medical History:Email alerts: Click hereSubscriptions: Click hereCommercial reprints: Click hereTerms of use : Click hereFrank Fenner and Bernardino Fantini, Biological controlof vertebrate pests: the history of myxomatosis, anexperiment in evolution, Wallingford, CABI Publishing,1999, pp. xii, 339, illus., £60.00 (0-85199-323-0).Lise WilkinsonMedical History / Volume 45 / Issue 01 / January 2001, pp 139 - 140DOI: 10.1017/S0025727300067594, Published online: 16 November 2012Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0025727300067594How to cite this article:Lise Wilkinson (2001). Medical History, 45, pp 139-140 doi:10.1017/S0025727300067594Request Permissions : Click hereDownloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/MDH, IP address: 144.82.107.68 on 12 Nov 2013Book Reviewsincalculable. The recollection still makes mecringe. There but for the grace, etc.Thebenefits to begained fromhaving afriendly expert to advise on technical mattersarethus enormous. This isessentially the roleWolbarst's bookmight fulfil forhistoriansinterested inmedical imaging. It suppliesclear, cogent and accessible accounts ofhowthe various imaging technologies work. Thishistorian, for one, was forced toconfront thefact that his understanding ofthe principlesofMRI was somewhat defective. Anoteworthy feature ofthe text is that thephysical and technical descriptions are veryusefully supplemented with illustrativeclinical cases. How the machines serve,sometimes indeed constitute, the process ofdiagnosis, and how they guide therapy, areeffectively conveyed. Safety issues receive aconcise but sophisticated and eminentlyreasonable assessment.This is not, however, abookthat historiansshould resort to to learn about history.Despite the publisher's claims to the contrary,the accounts ofthe development ofthevarious techniques are slight and partial. Ispotted one error. Wolbarst implies (p. 136)that B-mode ultrasound derives its namefrom reference to the brightness oftheimage.This is not the case. The terms A-mode andB-mode originated with radarimaging andwere so designated merely to distinguish onefrom the other. C-mode and D-mode alsoexist. Perhaps physicists in turn needhistorical advisors.Malcolm Nicolson,Wellcome Unit for theHistory of Medicine, GlasgowFrank Fenner and Bernardino Fantini,Biological control ofvertebratepests: thehistory ofmyxomatosis, an experiment inevolution, Wallingford, CABI Publishing,1999, pp. xii, 339, illus., £60.00 (0-85199-323-0).In 1983 Frank Fenner delivered theRoyal Society's Florey Lecture in London.Its title: 'Biological control as exemplifiedby smallpox eradication and myxomatosis'defined two lasting interests and majorachievements in Fenner's scientific career,and also the scope of his involvement inhistorical research on virus diseases andvirology of recent years. He was awardedthe Japan Prize for his part in the WHO'sworldwide smallpox eradication campaign,successfully concluded in 1979; and heworked on myxomatosis in his nativeAustralia from 1951 to 1965 when hepublished, with F N Ratcliffe, Myxomatosis,a standard text on the disease. The currentvolume may be seen as a sublimation of thelatter interest, and is a happy outcome ofcollaboration with Bernardino Fantini, theItalian Director of the Louis JeantetInstitute for the History of Medicine at theUniversity of Geneva.In a lucid text, the authors usemyxomatosis and its virus in rabbits as amodel in a comprehensive examination ofhistorical aspects ofthe development ofbiological control of vertebrate pests and itsorigins. Emphasis here is on developmentsin Europe and in particular in Australia,where the European rabbit was firstintroduced in the mid-nineteenth century asa food reservoir for shipwrecked sailors,and where much early twentieth-centuryand later work on the disease and itspossibilities as a control measure wascarried out. The rabbits in a rapidlyexpanding population were initially valuedas game animals, or trapped for their meatand skins; but because of their sheernumbers they soon came to be seen as adestructive agricultural pest, and withinfifteen years of their introduction, laws tocontrol the growing threat were being putinto place. A variety ofmethods were used:trapping, shooting, destruction ofburrows,and building of rabbit-proof fences. Notuntil 1951 did biological control ofAustralia's rabbit plague become possible.In that year experiments, carried out onbehalf of the Council for Scientific andIndustrial Research (CSIR) in Australia,139Book Reviewsconfirmed a high degree of speciesspecificity of myxoma virus subtypes, andtheir mechanical transmission bymosquitoes and fleas. Only then could thehard work carried out by Fenner and co-workers begin: and to study virus virulenceand subsequent changes in genetic resistanceof rabbits and of virus. A vaccine to protectrabbits in commercial rabbitries wasdeveloped in 1954.Early chapters give backgroundinformation concerning pest animals andplants in general, and rabbits in particular,and methods of biological control, beforeconcentrating on myxomatosis and theEuropean rabbit in Australia and Europe,including the fierce arguments andcontroversies surrounding introduction ofcontrol: the rabbit breeding industries andthe gourmets fond ofcooked rabbit, versusthe foresters and farmers who welcomedcontrol by myxomatosis.Having provided extensive coverage of,and insight into, the mechanics and ensuingconsequences of biological control of rabbitplagues by means ofmyxomatosis-virological, economic,environmental and ecological-the authorsintroduce a later alternative means ofvirological rabbit control: the calicivirus ofrabbit haemorrhagic disease (RHDV), firstobserved in China in 1984. It subsequentlyappeared in Europe and elsewhere, makinginroads in commercial rabbitries until aninactivated virus vaccine became available.The virus has since been the subject ofextensive tests with a view to possible usefor rabbit control in Australia and NewZealand. There are still unansweredquestions to be considered abouteffectiveness, safety, attenuation of thevirus, and developing resistance in rabbits.Whether this disease will ever be anacceptable alternative to myxomatosis forrabbit control in the antipodes is not clear,and will not be for some time to come.Concluding chapters in this satisfyingaccount of biological pest control cover'Ecological and environmental effects ofbiological control', 'Theoretical aspects ofmicrobial control of vertebrate pests', and'Coevolution of parasites and hosts'. Theinclusion of concise illustrated biographiesof the main players in this story is awelcome and informative addition, wellworth copying in other such "multi-biographical" scientific histories. It is abook which will appeal to biologists andhistorians of science alike, and should berecommended to their students.The book is generously illustrated andattractively produced. One minor quibblefor the sake of future editions: references toPasteur's early work on phylloxera arequoted repeatedly (p. 63) as published inComptes rendus hebdominaires des seances del'Academie des Sciences-surely that shouldbe Comptes rendus hebdomadaires desseances ... The copy editor must haveslipped up on that one.Lise Wilkinson,The Wellcome Trust Centrefor the History of Medicine at UCLThomas Dormandy, The white death: ahistory oftuberculosis, London and RioGrande, Hambledon Press, 1999, pp. xiv,433, illus., £25.00 (1-85295-169-4).Thomas Dormandy's The white death: ahistory oftuberculosis, recounts the medicalhistory of tuberculosis and the experiencesof renowned men and women whocombated it. Most of the personalnarratives that Dormandy examines havealready been analysed by others. An imageof the three Bronte sisters dominates thecover, the face of Keats near death is thefrontispiece. Dormandy begins the studywith an explication of Edvard Munch'swidely reproduced image of the deathbed ofhis sister Sophia. "The girl sits proppedupon pillows", Dormandy notes. "Her facehas become almost transparent ... Next toher, the mother's head is sunk on her chest,140

Frank Fenner and Bernardino Fantini, Biological control of vertebrate pests: the history of myxomatosis, an experiment in evolution, Wallingford, CABI Publishing, 1999, pp. xii, 339, illus., £60.00 (0-85199-323-0).

Frank Fenner and Bernardino Fantini, Biological control of vertebrate pests: the history of myxomatosis, an experiment in evolution, Wallingford, CABI Publishing, 1999, pp. xii, 339, illus., £60.00 (0-85199-323-0).

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