Page 4 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

OND
ERSTEPOORT 100
bacteriology’. From 1922-1923 these
lectures were given by Fourie. The chair in Hygiene and Infectious Diseases was filled in 1920 by P.J. du Toit with E.M. Robinson assisting as lecturer in hygiene from 1922- 1923. Robinson had qualified in England in 1914 and on his return to South Africa had been posted to the Allerton Laboratory in Natal. In 1923 hygiene was separated from infectious diseases and a new Bacteriology Department established under H.H. Green who previously was Professor of Biochemis- try and General Bacteriology. Robinson was transferred to the new department as lecturer in bacteriology and in 1925 became its head. In 1928 du Toit founded a new Department of Tropical Diseases and Protozoology, and Infectious Diseases and Bacteriology were combined with Robinson appointed as Professor and head of the department. He filled this position with distinction until 1956, although he had retired from the civil service in 1951, and still lectured until 1958.
Intermediate period
(1929-1948)
This period coincided with the director-
ship of P.J. du Toit and included the difficult
years of economic depression in the 1930s
and of the Second World War. There were, however, a
94 number of important developments on the bacteriological scene. In 1930 Robinson completed the lamsiekte saga by identifying the toxin-producing bacterium responsible for the paralysis of affected animals as Clostridium botulinum types C and D, and the disease thus as botulism. This discovery opened the way for the development of a vaccine and in 1938 J.H. Mason and Max Sterne prepared an effective formol-toxoid
vaccine containing both types and routine vaccination against the disease became possible. This followed the introduction of the formol toxoid process by Green in 1929 and the use of an adjuvant by Mason and Sterne in 1936 to improve the existing blackquarter (sponssiekte) vaccine.
Arguably, the most important discovery during this period was that by Sterne of a method to prepare a highly effective non-virulent anthrax vaccine. After his appointment in 1934 Sterne was posted to the Bacteriology Section under Robinson and given the task of producing the existing vaccine. The laborious task of preparing different vaccines for different animals and unpredictable failures, in terms of safety, prompted him to investigate alternative methods of reducing the virulence of Bacillus anthracis. During his research he made the very important and far reaching discovery that pathogenicity of B. anthracis depended on its capsule. He subsequently started experimenting with various methods that might give rise to mutated uncapsulated strains. This line of work was not received well and he was told that he was wasting his time.
Sterne, however, was stubborn and continued with his research. He found that virulent strains of anthrax readily produced
avirulent uncapsulated variants on cultivation under certain conditions. These variants appeared in cultures of virulent strains grown on 50% serum agar in an atmosphere containing 10-39% CO2. Variants selected from these cultures and grown on ordinary media were morphologically indistinguishable from virulent strains, but they had lost their ability to produce capsules and to invade the animal body, thus causing a fatal septicaemia. He isolated several potentially useful strains but eventually concentrated most of his further work on one of them. Thus, the toxigenic, non-capsulating (pXO1+/pXO2-) Bacillus anthracis strain 34F2 (also widely known as the ‘Sterne strain’) was born. It had all the characteristics required of a good vaccine, viz. good immunizing ability (even in guinea pigs), safety and good shelf life. This resulted in the production of a vaccine which was far superior to anything that had been produced before.
In due course Sterne’s (and Onderstepoort’s) successes became known internationally, with the result that his spore strain 34F2 and formulation were freely circulated world-wide. Today, almost all anthrax animal vaccines in use around the world contain strain 34F2. It is truly remarkable that even today, after about 70 years, the same strain and basically the same formula are still in use. The Sterne spore vaccine not only gave the world the means to effectively combat anthrax
“In due course Sterne’s (and Onderstepoort’s) successes became known internationally, with the result that his spore strain 34F2 and formulation were freely circulated world-wide.”
Bacillus anthracis, the rod-like bacterium causing anthrax
PART 3
History of Individual Disciplines
1908-2008
Years