Pasteur, rabbits and Cumberland disease
Pat J BlackallQueensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, EcoSciences Precinct, GPO Box 267, Brisbane, Qld 4001, Australia. Tel.: 0407 038 253, Email: p.blackall@uq.edu.au
Microbiology Australia 41(4) 201-204 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA20054
Published: 20 October 2020
Abstract
This article outlines the generally well known story of the attempt by Louis Pasteur to win the significant reward offered by the colonial governments of what would become Australia for biological control of the rabbit plague then infesting the continent. While the Pasteur bid, led by his nephew Adrien Loir, was not awarded the prize, there were significant flow-on benefits for agriculture in the colonies. The major benefit was the production of an effective vaccine for what the colonials called Cumberland disease (now known as anthrax). Loir also developed and/or provided vaccines for bovine pleuropneumonia and blackleg of cattle. Benefits also flowed back to France as the funds from the Cumberland disease vaccine sales to the colonial farmers helped support the newly established Pasteur Institute. The on-going controversy in the colonies and in the early days of the new nation of Australia over the use of a biological control agent (the organism we now know as Pasteurella multocida) is covered. This includes how a proposed biological control program using P. multocida became part of a class war. Finally, the irony that history continues to repeat itself – Hollywood’s recently most famous dogs (Pistol and Boo) were simply repeating the story line of Star and Chouette - is covered.
References
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