Page 35 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

ONDERSTEPOORT 100
Switzerland. She then taught at Jeppe High School for Girls, followed by stints at Rhodes University and the Huguenot University College before joining the staff of the Institute in 1940. Here she devoted her time to the study of ticks, describing and redescribing many species and mapping their South African distributions. She was assisted in this by having at her disposal the actual ticks that were
collected in the National Tick Survey that commenced in 1937, chiefly under the direction of A.D. Thomas, and also the data on the localities at which they had been collected. She knew the countryside intimately, travelling widely with her friend Andrea van Gass, and often sleeping out in the field.
Both Britha Robinson, daughter of the
bacteriologist, E.M. Robinson, and Lois Salis-
bury collaborated with Gertrud Theiler on
the description of ticks for various periods
of time, and their names appear alongside
hers in the descriptions of a number of
species. Regrettably her magnum opus, a
documentation of the ticks of vertebrates
of the Afrotropical region, was never
published. Although it is widely quoted in the literature, it did not progress beyond a cyclostyled report. It is rumoured that a difference of opinion between Theiler and Dr F. Zumpt of the South African Institute for Medical Research was responsible for it not being published in book format. She retired in 1967,
but continued to work at the Institute until 1983.
W.O. (Willie) Neitz, who qualified as a veterinarian in 1929, was a microbiologist and protozoologist of repute, but also achieved particular success in elucidating the role of the bont- legged tick, Hyalomma truncatum as the cause of sweating sickness in cattle. He, F. Boughton and H.S. Walters were also successful in breeding ticks in Neitz’s quest to determine the vectors of disease (see also Part 3: Protozoology). Amongst others they were successful in breeding the Karoo paralysis tick Ixodes rubicundus, and Rhipicephalus theileri, a parasite of Cape
ground squirrels.
Karoo paralysis, caused by engorging
female I. rubicundus, is a tick toxicosis peculiar to South Africa, and particularly affects small ruminants in the Karoo and Karoid regions of the Eastern, Western and Northern Cape Provinces and the Free State Province. S. (Siegfried) Stampa, a German veterinarian, spent time at Onderstepoort and then became a state veterinarian in the Eastern Cape Province where he worked on the ecology of I. rubicundus, while still
maintaining strong ties with the Institute through R.M. du Toit. His studies, followed much later by those of L.J. Fourie, of the University of the Free State, and I.G. Horak, led to rational preventative and control measures for this tick and hence also the paralysis that it induced.
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G. Theiler was an expert tick taxonomist
“W.O. (Willie) Neitz, who qualified as a veterinarian in 1929, was a microbiologist and protozoologist of repute, but also achieved particular success in elucidating the role of the bont-legged tick, Hyalomma truncatum as the cause of sweating sickness in cattle.”
Parasitology
1908-2008
Years