Historical Vignette: A Life with Poxviruses and Publishers

Abstract

Although I started science investigating the physical anthropology of Australian aboriginals and then spent six years in the Australian Army during the 1939-45 war, largely working on malaria control, the poxviruses have been the focal point of my research--at the bench, in the field, on committees, and in front of my word processor. I have had a relatively short period as a scientist at the bench, just over twenty years out of the sixty years since I graduated. For the last thirty years the pipette has been replaced by the pen and the word processor, and contacts with publishers have become an important element in my life. My pilgrim's progress, from mousepox through myxomatosis to vaccinia and then smallpox, has been helped by what can only be described as good luck, coming in many guises. I have been fortunate in many ways; in my father and mother and the genes and family life they gave me; in my wife, who was an immense source of support until her death in 1995; in the people whom I met during the Second World War; and in my close association with three great scientists, Macfarlane Burnet, René Dubos, and Howard Florey. I had the good fortune to be appointed, as a young and inexperienced virologist, to one of the best research jobs in the world, as a professor in the Australian National University. I have been very lucky in having had the opportunity to exploit a series of scientific gold mines; in turn, malaria, during the War, then mousepox, an unexploited virus because its use was forbidden in the United States, then, after a brief flirtation with mycobacteria, myxomatosis, an unparalleled natural experiment of evolution in action, and finally the most impressive achievement in public health in world history, the global eradication of smallpox. My last job in the University before retirement provided me with the opportunity to do something about the most important problems confronting humankind: the degradation of the environment, driven by the explosion in human numbers and their ever-growing use of resources. Each of these activities has provided opportunities to establish and maintain close friendships with scientists all over the world.