Abstract
THE annual report of the South African Institute for Medical Research for 1946 records activities so various that a short note cannot mention them all. Mr. G. H. Beatty, chairman of the Board of Management since 1939, retired in 1946 and was succeeded by Mr. E. H. A. Lawrence. The Institute‘s close co-operation with the University of the Witwatersrand continues. Increased attention is being given to the problem of the universal donor of blood for transfusion, and studies of the Rhesus factors have been continued. Work on the vole tuberculosis bacillus has included a continuation of immunization experiments previously carried out to include Cercopithecus monkeys and rodents. Two species of gerbils have proved equally susceptible to Mycobacterium tuberculosis and the vole bacillus, so that they cannot be used for cross-immunization work. Work on leprosy included treatment of lepers with ‘‘Promin, a new sulphone ; but blood examinations showed no significant change over a period of four months. Considerable work has been done on diphtheria, dysentery, tetanus, gas gangrene, relapsing fever, typhus fever and other diseases ; a plague-like eipizootic occurring among gerbils in the Johannesburg area was, after investigation, ascribed to Lieteria monocytogenes, and further study of this organism, which influences the wild rodent population and is also present in domestic rats, gave interesting results which are outlined in this report. Entomologists will be interested in the list of vectors of yellow fever, which records thirty-four species of mosquito new to northern Bechuanaland, also in the work on the physiology of Cimex lectularius and the larvae of Aedes cegypti. Standard bed bugs are being reared for the biological assay of insecticides. Work has also been done on nutrition, venoms and antiven-enes, and allergy, and a considerable volume of routine work accomplished.
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Medical Research in South Africa. Nature 161, 162 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161162c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161162c0