Arnold Theiler, Swiss-born South African veterinarian (Frick, Canton Aargau 26 March 1867 – London 24 July 1936)

Father of Nobel Prize winner virologist Max Theiler (1899-1972)

Authored over 250 papers and booklets

Proposed heartwater was caused by a rickettsial organism

Demonstred ticks as vectors of horse piroplasmosis (1906)

Cleared up the aetiology of cattle redwater and biliary fever of horses

Established the vectors (ticks) of many cattle diseases

First to realise that there was a plurality of strains in the horse sickness virus and produced the first crude vaccine against it

Developed the first effective vaccine for rinderpest (1896)

Proposed the use of Anaplasma marginale v. centrale could be used to immunize against gallsickness of cattle (1910)

DISEASES

With C.P. Lounsbury identified and described Theileria parva as causative agent of East Coast Fever (1904)

Described Theiler’s disease (1919)

Discovered the cause of lamsiekte disease (a manifestation of botulism)

The cause and prevention of Lamziekte (1920)

With J. McFadyean & T. Edgington discovered African horse sickness virus, the first orbivirus known (1900)

With J. Spruell demonstred that bluetongue of sheep was a virosis (1902-6)

Discovered a very simple and effective method of vaccination for bluetongue of sheep (found that subinoculating the virus from sheep to sheep) (1907)

Described an infectious foot disease in sheep

DESCRIBED PARASITES

Discovered Trypanosoma theileri (1902) and Spirochaeta theileri described by others researchers

Genus

Anaplasma 1909

Species

Anaplasma marginale (1909), the first rickettsial pathogen known

Parabotulinus bovis (1927) with Robinson

Parabotulinus equi 1927 with Robinson

Theileria mutans 1906

Hartertia gallinarum 1919

OTHERS

Proved the link between poisonous plant species like Senecio, Crotalaria, Pachystigma, Geigeria and Vangueria sp. and cattle diseases

Developed a remedy for treatment of wireworm and other worm infections (1912)

Devised a vat-side arsenic tester

Un nouveau medicament pour le traitement des piroplasmoses. Bull. Soc. Path. Exot. 23:506, 1930

Clarified the aetiology, histopathology and nomenclature of bone lesions besides defining rickets, osteomalacia and osteodystrophia fibrosa

Untersuchungen uber den Bau normaler and durch calcium-and phosphorarme Nahrung veranderter Rinderknochen (1932)

HONORS / EPONYMS

Theilera E.P. Phillips 1936 (Campanulaceae)

Theileria Bettencourt, França & Borges 1907 (Protozoa)

Theilerization, consisting of infection with virus from an animal naturally affected and the subsequent intravenous injection of trypanblue or ichthargan