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Annette Hinz-Wessels Jens Thiel
The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut 1910–2010 100 Years of Research for Animal Health Edited by the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Greifswald-Isle of Riems
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Bibliographic information of the German National Library The German National Library fulfils the organisation’s legal mandate to carry out bibliographic indexing of all publications issued in Germany. Detailed bibliographic data can be accessed freely via the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. All rights reserved. This work, including all of its parts, is protected by copyright. Any use outside the narrow constraints of copyright law without the consent of the publisher is prohibited and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, archiving on microfilm, filming and storage and processing on DVDs, CD-ROMs, CDs, videos, in further electronic systems as well as to Internet platforms.
© be.bra wissenschaft verlag GmbH Berlin-Brandenburg 2010 KulturBrauerei Haus 2 Schönhauser Allee 37, 10435 Berlin post@bebra-wissenschaft.de Editor: Matthias Zimmermann, Berlin Translation: Martina R. Jones, Düsseldorf & Robert M. Coleman, Plymouth (UK) Layout: typegerecht berlin, Berlin Typeset: Walbaum 9,5 /14 pt Printing: Dami Editorial & Printing Services ISBN 978–3-937233–75–8 www.bebra-wissenschaft.de
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Table of Contents
Thomas C. Mettenleiter
Foreword by the Editor
7
Ilse Aigner
Welcoming Address by the Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection
9
Annette Hinz-Wessels
Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission on Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Berlin and Greifswald Abstract
11 29
Annette Hinz-Wessels
The World’s First Virological Research Institute: The Foundation of the “Isle of Riems Research Institution” in 1910 Abstract
35 53
Annette Hinz-Wessels
Under the Auspices of the Foundation for Research into Animal Diseases: The Expansion of the Isle of Riems Research Institution in the 1920s and 1930s Abstract
57 80
Annette Hinz-Wessels
In the Service of the “Fatherland”: The Isle of Riems in the Second World War Abstract
87 110
Jens Thiel
Reconstruction and Reorientation: Riems Between 1945 and 1970 Abstract
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127 155
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Jens Thiel
From Academy Institute to State-Owned Enterprise and Back Again: The Isle of Riems between 1970 and 1991 163 Abstract 181 Annette Hinz-Wessels
The “Western Riems” or the Traubian Institute: The Federal Research Centre for Virus Diseases of Animals in Tübingen Abstract
187 216
Annette Hinz-Wessels
An East-German Success Story: The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut After German Reunification Abstract
225 259
Appendix List of Abbreviations Picture Credits Acknowledgements The Authors
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265 269 270 271
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7
Foreword
“Your Excellency, I obediently report that, immediately upon the arrival of a sample of fresh lymph from Witkowo on Monday, 10 October, I commenced work on the Isle of Riems.” These are the opening words of a letter from Friedrich Loeffler to the Minister of Agriculture, Estates and Forestry in Berlin written on 13 October 1910, in which he announces the start of his research work. Thus began the history of the world’s oldest virus research institute, which has borne the name of its founder since 1952. On 10 October 2010, the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its foundation. The time was, therefore, right to research and document the eventful history of the institute in great detail. This task was to be undertaken by acknowledged historians with no previous connection to the institute in order to ensure the greatest possible objectivity. This book is evidence of the success of this approach. Friedrich Loeffler himself only headed the institute for a brief period. Called to Berlin to become a successor of his mentor Robert Koch in 1913, he died shortly thereafter. What decisively shaped the institute on the Isle of Riems were the long presidencies of Otto Waldman and Heinz Röhrer. During the course of its history, the FLI “experienced” several situations that could have led to this research institution being closed down forever. The future of the institute hung in the balance at the end of both World Wars. After World War II, an institute with a similar remit was founded in Tübingen in the Federal Republic of Germany. When the GDR came to an end, the FLI had become a production facility run as a nationally-owned enterprise and research seemed largely to have come to an end. The FLI, however, still exists today and its research activities are more wide-ranging than ever before. The FLI has extended far beyond the Isle of Riems. After German reunification, the institutes on the Isle of Riems, in Tübingen and in Wusterhausen that worked in the fields of virology and epidemiology were reorganised and amalgamated. At the beginning of the new millennium, the institute in Jena, oriented towards bacteriology, was integrated into the FLI. A few years later, the FLI became a Competence Centre in Germany for all aspects of livestock husbandry
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8
Foreword
when it incorporated the research institutes in Mariensee, Celle and Braunschweig. Although the institute was originally founded to investigate foot-andmouth disease and has achieved great success in combating this infection, in recent years it has become more widely known as a result of its work on BSE, the H5N1 bird flu virus, rabies and swine fever. Research into infections remains the core competence of the FLI, but its remit has been extended further. In carrying out departmental research for the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, the FLI, as a Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, handles all issues affecting the health and well-being of farmed animals. As a Collaborating Centre for Zoonoses in Europe of the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health), it also forms a link to human medicine according to the “One World – One Health – One Medicine” initiative, i.e. it brings together human and veterinary medical expertise in order to arrive at an all-embracing health strategy in a globalised world. With the new buildings that will soon start operating or are in preparation, the course is set for further successful work at the three final locations of the FLI on the Isle of Riems, in Jena and Mariensee. At the same time, the repair and reconstruction of the historically evolved, listed buildings also demonstrate that the FLI is aware of its historical significance and responsibility. The first 100 years of the institute are history; the next 100 are just beginning. The FLI is well-positioned to continue its work long into the future. I hope that readers will enjoy the exciting story of this institute, which also reflects 100 years of German history in many respects. And I hope that, like me, the members of staff at the FLI are also rather proud of being able to work and carry out research at this famous institute. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Thomas C. Mettenleiter President and Professor
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9
Welcoming Address by the Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner
High quality and continuity distinguish the scientific work done by the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year. It is thus the oldest research institute for virology in the world and has established an excellent reputation not only at national level, but also globally. The achievements and expertise of this institute are based on the excellent work done by its scientists over this long period. Friedrich Loeffler, after whom the institute is named, and the commitment he showed, laid the foundations for the outstanding reputation enjoyed by the Federal Research Institute today. The FLI forms an important and indispensable part of the departmental research conducted by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, because good and forward-looking policies require well-founded advice from the scientific community. One of the key mandates of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut is therefore to continue to provide policy-makers with reliable advice and to give expert answers to pressing issues. Since the foundation of the institute there has been a great increase in the demands on veterinary infectiology. At the beginning of the 20th century, the detection of animal disease agents had significant implications for the population’s food supply as well as for the animals and farms who were directly affected. Today, animal diseases are of vital significance especially with regard to trade. The global trade in animals and foodstuffs, the changes in climatic conditions and, not least, the mutability of animal disease agents, some of which are also harmful to human health, pose ever new and multifaceted challenges for the responsible actors in research and politics. The Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut meets the high demands for excellent scientific expertise both at national level – for example as the national reference centre for more than 50 animal diseases, including zoonoses – and also beyond Germany’s borders. The fact that the Federal Research Institute has been commissioned to perform a number of international tasks, carried out for example on behalf of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Health Organization (WHO), provides striking evidence of the institute’s international focus.
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10
Welcoming Address
With regard to the future development of the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, the following saying applies: “Those who build have faith in the future�. I am therefore delighted that the FLI is to be expanded into one of the most technically advanced research organisations for animal health in the world, continuing what is now one hundred years of tradition, and representing a further successful chapter in its history as the oldest existing institute for virus research. Ilse Aigner Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection
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11
Annette Hinz-Wessels
Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission on Foot-and-Mouth Disease in Berlin and Greifswald
The history of the current Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health on the Isle of Riems near Greifswald, which started its work on 10 October 1910 and was called “Isle of Riems Research Institution” two months later,* 1 is closely associated with scientific research into foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), especially in its early years. FMD is an acute, highly contagious and febrile disease of cloven-hoofed animals. Typical characteristics of the disease are blisters (aphthae) and lesions particularly of the mucous membranes and hairless skin areas. The disease is rarely lethal, but, with malignant cases, two thirds of infected young animals die. In the 19th and 20th centuries, FMD was the most economically significant animal disease in the world. After a great deal of evidence regarding occurrences of the disease in the first half of the 19th century, there was a significant increase in cases of the disease in the second half of the 19th century due to the intensification of animal agriculture and the rapid rise of (livestock) trade and transport. Devastating outbreaks of the disease were recorded in Europe in the years 1845, 1855, 1862, 1871, 1882 and 1892.2 Despite the control measures specified in the Animal Diseases Act of 23 June 1880, which basically extended to a disclosure requirement, restrictions and bans on the import of livestock, the German Empire was no longer in control of foot-and-mouth disease since its recurrence in the summer of 1887. In 1892 and 1896 in particular, despite a tightening of hygiene measures undertaken to combat the disease, it spread significantly.3 In 1892, the German Empire recorded 105,929 affected farmsteads and 4,153,519 diseased animals (1,504,299 of them cattle)4 and, four years later, 68,874 diseased farmsteads and 1,548,437 ill animals (710,481 of them cattle). The establishment of bacteriology as a new leading medical science, the spectacular evidence of pathogens and the development of effective vaccines and therapies by Robert Koch (1843–1910), Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and their disciples also raised the issue of scientific research into the cause or pathogen of FMD. Agriculture and its political representatives in particular pressed for a small and effective search for the “contagious matter” and a suitable means to combat the disease due to the high financial losses that the farmers suffered on account of the disease.
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FMD information chart, 1910
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12
Imperial Health Office on Berlin’s Luisenstrasse
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Annette Hinz-Wessels
The Technical Deputation for Veterinary Affairs located at the Prussian Ministry of Agricultural Affairs had already been involved in combating FMD since the 1870s. In August 1893, on behalf of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, it announced a competition with a prize of 3,000 marks for the discovery of the as yet unknown substance “through which the infection of footand-mouth disease is transmitted”.5 The entrants should “not only determine the sought-for substance using the usual methods for such investigations, perhaps new methods […] and, if possible, isolate it but also demonstrate its effectiveness” by carrying out experiments on animals. The competition was a failure. Altogether a mere ten studies were submitted, only two of which, in the jurors’ view, were of any scientific value whatsoever. But they did not even want to award the prize to these studies as they had not sufficiently proven that the microorganism they described was the pathogen responsible for FMD.6 The Ministry of Agricultural Affairs approved this decision and at the same time, in view of the urgent problem, initiated another offer of a reward – this time with a deadline of 15 months.7 Even with this second competition, the Technical Deputation came to the conclusion, after reviewing the seven submissions, that none of the candidates could be awarded the prize.8 In parallel to these efforts on the part of the state, representatives of agrarian interests addressed the matter politically in the Reichstag. On 23 March 1896, when the budget of the Department of the Interior for 1896–97 was being discussed, a motion of the German Conservative Party (submitted by member of parliament Mr von Podbielski and his comrades) to petition the Imperial Chancellor “to take account of the need for the immediate establishment of experimental institutions for the thorough investigation of FMD on behalf of the empire and in the individual federal states” was adopted with a large majority.9 On 14 July 1896, the Bundesrat subsequently decided to transfer the resolution to the Imperial Chancellor, with the addendum “to work towards the health authorities of the empire and the states determining not only the pathogens of foot-and-mouth disease but also a suitable cure”.10 Even on the part of the Prussian government and in view of the wide spread of FMD and the modest success of the legally prescribed measures, it was obvious that scientific research into the disease was the way to find a better means of combating it. Everyone agreed that this work could not be done through “private research”, but only through scientific institutions – and preferably by means of different places independent of each other.11 In its meetings on 21 and 22 January 1897, and in line with the demands expressed, the Reichstag approved a sum of 35,000 marks for scientific research into FMD in the financial year of 1897–98. The Prussian state parliament approved a further 20,000 marks in its meeting on 8 May 1897. At state level, these sums were transferred to the Imperial Health Office (Kaiserliches Gesundheitsamt) and, in Prussia, to the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases (Preußisches Institut für Infektionskrankheiten) led by Robert Koch. The task of the Imperial Health Office was obvious. Since the beginning of the 1880s, a series of groundbreaking discoveries of animal pathogens had
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Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission
been made and extensive FMD studies had been carried out in 1892.12 On the Prussian side, the original intention was to entrust the research to the Universities of Veterinary Medicine (Tierärztliche Hochschulen) in Berlin and Hanover.13 The Imperial Health Office had, however, pointed out to the higher-ranking ministry that the planned studies lay, for the most part, in the field of bacteriology and extensive knowledge and experience of this field was required. It, therefore, recommended involving the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases. This recommendation corresponded quite clearly with the ideas of the pertinent advisor in the Prussian Ministry of Culture and the “secret minister of cultural affairs”, Friedrich Althoff (1839 –1908), who had already spoken to the director of the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases and had charged him with drawing up a cost schedule for the establishment of a research facility for FMD. On 24 August 1896, Koch provided an appropriate schedule amounting to 23,000 marks in total, which also included the rent of two railway arches and their conversion into a building for livestock as well as the purchase of test animals.14 Even the Prussian Ministry of Agricultural Affairs saw the need to have the research carried out by scientists trained in bacteriology. Consequently, the Prussian Minister for Agricultural Affairs announced before the Reichstag in January 1897 that, in Prussia, they had considered setting up an institute for conducting research into diseases and animal hygiene – in conjunction with the University of Veterinary Medicine in Berlin – but that the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases would initially carry out the planned research into FMD.15 Thus the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs fully recognised that the scientific understanding necessary to clarify the still outstanding issues was not available in its own department but only in the rival Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Responsibility for FMD research was thus transferred from the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs and its Technical Deputation to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. And that is how the situation remained for the next few years as the announced establishment of an institute that would conduct research into diseases and animal hygiene did not come about. The obvious rivalry at ministerial level would later be repeated between the scientists, too. Even several months before the consent of the Prussian state parliament, Robert Koch had been charged by the Prussian Minister of Cultural Affairs to start aetiological, prophylactic and therapeutic investigations into FMD on 31 August 1896.16 Within the institute, Koch passed the assignment on to the director of the scientific department, Richard Pfeiffer (1858–1945), and to the assistant there, Paul Frosch (1860 –1928).17 Koch himself did not assume the supervision or the management of the planned experiments but left Berlin on 11 November 1896 in order to carry out research on rinderpest in South Africa at the invitation of the English government in the months that followed.18 Only on 20 May 1898 – long after the decisive discoveries of the FMD commission had been made – did he return to Berlin. Richard Pfeiffer was also able to take only brief part in the planned research program. After representatives of the Department of the Interior as well as the Prussian Ministry
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13
Friedrich Loeffler and Robert Koch
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14
Paul Frosch, 1891
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Annette Hinz-Wessels
of Cultural Affairs had decided, on 15 February 1897, to send a commission to India to investigate the plague there, Pfeiffer and the further four designated expedition members left their workplaces in the following few days in order to embark for Bombay on an English mail steamer on 21 February 1897, along with all their scientific equipment.19 The sudden loss of the designated project manager was obviously an opportunity to ask, at short notice, the Professor of Hygiene at the University of Greifswald, Friedrich Loeffler (1852–1915), to cooperate in the commission set up to investigate FMD. This is indicated in a telegram that Loeffler sent to Althoff on 22 February 1897, in which he stated: “Am willing in principle but request more information, would like to come to Berlin to discuss matters.”20 Whether Althoff’s request to Loeffler was issued at the suggestion of the Koch Institute or due to his own considerations must remain unsettled. In the agreement concluded on 1 March 1897, it was at any rate expressly declared that “The assistant of the Institute for Infectious Diseases, Dr Frosch, and Prof. Dr Loeffler, the Privy Medical Counsellor appointed ad hoc [author’s emphasis], from Greifswald will undertake this task. The latter will be entrusted with heading the commission in accordance with the rules of procedure.”21 Loeffler’s appointment as Pfeiffer’s replacement was obvious from a professional point of view.22 In 1879, Loeffler had been appointed medical doctor to the Imperial Health Office at nearly the same time as Georg Gaffky (1850 – 1918) and was thus one of Robert Koch’s oldest disciples. In 1881, he discovered the glanders pathogen and in 1883 the pathogen of swine erysipelas and the so-called swine plague (pasteurellosis).23 In the following year of 1884, Loeffler described the diphtheria bacteria for the very first time. After he had been transferred to the Friedrich Wilhelm Institute as a captain of the medical corps, he was called to the newly founded Chair of Hygiene at the University of Greifswald in 1888. Owing to his scientific reputation as a bacteriologist and his successful studies into the pathogens of animal diseases, Loeffler was, without a doubt, the most suitable person for the tasks at hand. Wilhelm Schütz (1839 –1920), Professor of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Berlin, was appointed to the extraordinary advisory council for veterinary issues. Since 1876, Schütz had been an extraordinary member of the Imperial Health Office and had associated himself with Koch’s school of bacteriology from very early on. In the 1880s, he had carried out research at the Imperial Health Office on glanders together with Loeffler, and had discovered its pathogen.24 Furthermore, Schütz had concrete experience in FMD research thanks to the vaccine trials he had carried out, with the permission of the Ministry of Agriculture, on several head of cattle in the province of Brandenburg in the summer of 1893.25 At the time of his appointment to the extraordinary advisory council for veterinary issues, besides his chair in veterinary pathology, he also held the post of rector of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Berlin.26 Schütz was not, however, named as co-author of the sensational publications of the FMD commission, which led Otto Waldmann, later the head of the research facility
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Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission
15
Railway arches near the Charité hospital in Berlin; the FMD committee used railway arch No. 262 (front left) for its experiments, 2010
on Riems for many years, to conclude retrospectively: “Schütz hardly made an appearance in this commission. (The files of the period up to 1907 show how the Prussian Ministry of Cultural Affairs anxiously saw to it that FMD research remained in the hands of scientists specialising in human medicine).”27 In effect, his influence and scientific achievements within the commission can scarcely be determined by the surviving sources. Even shortly after work commenced, Frosch and Loeffler discovered that the institute’s existing livestock buildings would not be adequate for the planned experiments, whereupon the minister approved the leasing of one and a half railway arches (Nos. 262 and 282) where stabling for FMD trials could be set up.28 On 17 April 1897, the commission submitted an initial report to the Minister of Cultural Affairs, who then made it available to the Imperial Health Office on 24 May 1897.29 Initially, Loeffler and Frosch had given priority to carrying out investigations into the aetiology of the disease and had proven, through various experiments, that the bacteria previously mentioned by other scientists could be ruled out as being the pathogens of FMD. In parallel to this, they had started trials concerning the transmission of the disease to various species of animals, the mode of infection, the infectious material itself, the duration of the activity of the virus, the development of immunity and the possibility of a successful vaccination and submitted initial findings.30 Even very early on, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs realised that this represented a huge step forward in FMD research. In June 1897, the commission received the ministerial recommendation to “immediately publish the results of their studies to date in a professional journal”.31 What lay behind this demand was, no doubt, the wish of the higher-ranking ministry to gain as much publicity as possible in view of the popularity of bacteriology at the turn of the 20th century and the national and international rivalry to make the most spectacular pathogenic discoveries.
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Friedrich Loeffler as a medical officer
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16
Wilhelm Schütz, circa 1900
Annette Hinz-Wessels
Even the first “summary report on the results of the investigations of the commission for research into foot-and-mouth disease” jointly drawn up by Loeffler and Frosch, which appeared almost at the same time in three scientific journals (Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Centralblatt für Bakteriologie and Berliner Tierärztliche Wochenschrift) in September 1897 attracted enormous publicity.32 In it, the authors declared that, as a result of extensive animal experiments, all previously described bacteria could be ruled out as being the pathogen. In their experiments, pigs and cattle had shown themselves to be particularly susceptible, whereas they had not successfully managed to artificially infect other animals such as sheep, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs or mice. Due to their experiments, they regarded it as a proven fact, “contrary to the prevailing views of veterinary authorities”, that “in the overwhelming majority of the infected animals, the illness [caused] immunity two to three weeks after infection”. Finally, they declared that there were substances in the blood of the animals that had become immune that – mixed with fresh lymph – would, if they were injected into the body of susceptible animals, make them immune to the disease. The artificial immunisation of pigs and cattle succeeded, they wrote, “through the injection of lymph, which is heated to destroy infectivity, as well as through the injection of mixtures of lymph and immune blood”. The report was well received, particularly within the ranks of veterinarians, for whom the fight against FMD had posed a special challenge for years. An editor of the influential veterinary journal Berliner Tierärztliche Wochenschrift (BTW) commented on the previously reviewed summary report as follows: “Should the serum vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease prove to be a pragmatically applicable fact, then its discoverers Loeffler and Frosch will have […] secured one of the greatest successes of which bacteriology can boast to date and have rendered an invaluable service to agriculture. The fact that, with regard to the most important animal disease of the age, the prize was ceded to a doctor is obviously, we need not deny it, at one and the same time a sort of defeat for those representing veterinary sciences, which in Germany has not enjoyed many independent successes in the bacteriological field under its current leadership.”33 This admission immediately met with vehement objections from veterinarians. One week after the appearance of the commission’s report and under the headline “The prize goes to a veterinarian after all”, veterinarian Carl Hecker (1868–1910)34 spoke up in the same journal in order to claim the priority of an immunisation process developed by him. “In November of last year, as well as in March of this year”, Hecker claimed to have produced “protective serum [made] from the blood of immunised cattle during outbreaks on farms here”. He had successfully tested it and had provided the Chamber of Agricultural Affairs for the province of Saxony with appropriate suggestions for immunisation.
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Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission
17
In addition, Hecker could prove he had launched investigations at the Imperial Patent Office in April 1897 as to whether a vaccination method against FMD was already protected by a patent.35 As this was evidently not the case, he filed an application himself.36 His “method to produce a protective agent and remedy against foot-and-mouth disease” was regarded as patent-protected according to the usual approval procedure as of 14 January 1898.37 Finally, Hecker refuted Loeffler’s claim that, in veterinary circles, there was widespread rejection of the idea that animals that had recovered from the disease were then protected by immunity. “The prevailing views of the by far overwhelming majority of the veterinary doctors and veterinary authorities are to the effect that, according to the current state of experience regarding foot-and-mouth disease, survival of the disease causes immunity. Only the duration of this immunity is limited by many specialists so that they regard a certain period, six months to two years, as the limit of immunity. A definitive judgement, based on scientific, experimental trials, cannot yet be made.”38 Although Hecker’s detailed presentation of his own results was enthusiastically acknowledged in the BTW, the delay in their publication was emphatically criticised:
First FMD committee report, 1897
“We veterinary doctors can, it is true, now be pleased that a veterinary doctor is not only successfully involved but has even, in practice, rushed on ahead of the medical laboratory trial. However, the opinion of the broad public will stop at the long-term impression made by the first publication.”39 In the period that followed, the BTW often discussed the “contest to find a practical method of immunising cattle against foot-and-mouth disease” between Loeffler and Hecker as well as the – in the view of the BTW – insufficient acknowledgement of the work that had been carried out by then by the Prussian FMD commission and the danger that threatened veterinary medicine owing to the scientific findings: “The fact that, in an issue vital to all of agriculture, the Imperial Health Office obtained sufficient funding and institutions for a medical commission and the Prussian Ministry of Cultural Affairs likewise, while the veterinary institutes and experts had to conspicuously step aside has made a depressing impression […] in veterinary circles […] And the judgement of our authorities regarding veterinary abilities, which must concern us most, could also be detrimentally influenced by this to a great degree. Thus, gradually, a general view could develop that it is quite advantageous to place the scientific management of veterinary medicine back into medical hands again, just as it was previously, and as has already happened with foot-and-mouth disease. What has been achieved by veterinary doctors since 1872 can easily sink into oblivion.”40
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18
Patent specification for Carl Hecker, 1898
Annette Hinz-Wessels
The BTW would be proved correct with regard to its judgement of the public perceptions of the reports of Loeffler and Frosch. Even today, the studies of the Prussian commission are regarded as a milestone in the history of microbiology. This is, however, less because of the successful immunisation against FMD but more due to the discovery of the “filterability” of its pathogen. Loeffler and Frosch only reported on this property in their third report written on 8 January 1898 and published in the medical journal Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift on 10 February 1898.41 Following the detailed presentation of their practical findings, they reported results that, in their correct appraisal, were “not of minor scientific interest and, insofar as can be judged at present, could be of far-reaching significance with regard to further investigation of not only foot-and-mouth disease but also of numerous other infectious diseases of both humans and animals”. Loeffler and Frosch had, initially, produced bacteria-free filtrates from lymph and subsequently observed that the animals treated with the filtrates fell ill with all the typical symptoms of FMD, i.e. high fever and blisters in the mouth and on the hooves, at the same time as the control animals that had received analogous quantities of the same, unfiltered lymph. In their view, there were two possible explanations for these observations: “Either the bacteria-free, filtered lymph contains a dissolved, extremely effective toxin, or the as yet undiscovered pathogens of the disease were so small that they could pass through the pores of a filter which is impermeable to the tiniest known bacteria.” Assuming a toxic value of the tetanus toxin, on the basis of comparable calculations, they came to the conclusion “that the effects of the filtrates are not the effects of a dissolved substance but rather of causative agents capable of reproduction”. Loeffler and Frosch put forward the theory that they had to be smaller than the smallest known bacteria at that time, namely “the influenza bacillus as discovered by Pfeiffer”. This would also explain the futile efforts “to discover the pathogens in the lymph with a microscope”, whose capacity “even with the best modern immersion systems” was not sufficient to cope with such a small size. In view of their observations, both scientists said that it would be reasonable to assume “that the causative agents of many other infectious diseases in human beings and in animals, such as smallpox, cowpox, scarlet fever, measles, epidemic typhus, rinderpest, etc., which have thus far been sought to no avail, belong to this group of extremely small organisms.” In a fourth report to the Minister of Cultural Affairs, Loeffler put the previously made statements regarding the properties of the pathogen into concrete terms: “The often-made observation that diluted lymph, after repeated filtration through Kitasato filters, is no longer able to infect susceptible animals, even if an amount of filtrate corresponding to 4/50 ml of pure lymph was used for injection, speaks in favour of the assumption that the virus is a corpuscular and not a soluble agent. Thus the agent that causes this disease has been retained in the particularly narrow pores of the Kitasato filter.”42
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Friedrich Loeffler and the Research Commission
These research findings of the FMD commission in 1898, on which Loeffler also reported at the 9th International Congress for Hygiene and Demography in Madrid in April 1898,43 as well as the identification of the tobacco mosaic virus as a non-visible, living and filterable agent by Dimitri Ivanovsky (1864– 1920) and Martinus Beijerinck (1851–1931) in 1892 and 1898 mark the beginnings of modern virology.44 In actual fact, with his concept of a corpuscular nature of the FMD pathogen that was rejected by Beijerinck, Loeffler came closer to the modern definition of a virus than all his contemporaries.45 The discoveries of the Prussian commission affected not only the rivalry that was rife between doctors treating human beings and those treating animals in the field of FMD research, but also the rivalry between Prussian institutions and those of the German empire. The Imperial Health Office saw itself as a supraregional coordinator of all FMD trials because its jurisdiction extended throughout the empire. Any independence of the trials of the Prussian commission was ignored; rather they were regarded as part of the working plan for FMD research approved by the Department of the Interior and run under the auspices of the Imperial Health Office. Its position as a coordinating and controlling institution was underlined by the formation of a special commission to participate in the scientific research into FMD proposed by the Imperial Health Office. This commission, to which bacteriologists (among them also Loeffler) as well as veterinary doctors and farmers belonged, convened in the Imperial Health Office on 14 January 1989 in order to deliberate the direction of further scientific research given the findings thus far.46 Furthermore, the director of the Imperial Health Office, Karl Köhler (1847–1912), reported the results of the research to date before the Reichstag on 28 January 1898.47 Much to the displeasure of Loeffler, who was present at the session, he did not mention the Prussian commission and its – from Loeffler’s point of view – significant contribution to the latest findings. Both the members of the Reichstag and the public had, so Loeffler feared, gained the impression that the Imperial Health Office had carried out the important trials regarding immunisation itself, thanks to Köhler’s report and a contemporaneous publication issued by the Imperial Health Office. Informed that the Prussian commission felt very much overlooked by Köhler’s omission and hindered in its scientific rights, Loeffler asked for permission to faithfully present the entire issue in public.48 He ultimately abandoned this idea after Köhler had denied deliberately concealing the Prussian achievements and the Department of the Interior had instructed Köhler to give a brief explanation at the forthcoming negotiations of the supplementary budget.49 Not least of all, the findings of the Prussian commission came up against the interests of the still young pharmaceutical and chemical industry in the German Empire. According to a report by Loeffler to the Minister of Cultural Affairs in July 1898, the factory Farbwerke Hoechst, previously called Meister Lucius und Brüning, had, subsequent to the publications, “set up […] extensive facilities in order to be able to produce the protective vaccination materials in practice. Thanks to their preliminary work over the last 5 months, Farbwerke
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Information chart showing the size of bacteria and viruses, 1939
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Loeffler at the 9th International Congress of Hygiene and Demography from 10 to 17 April 1898, Section 1: Microbiology Applied to Hygiene Extract from Friedrich Loeffler‘s conference proceedings in the quarterly journal Deutscher Vierteljahresschrift für öffentliche Gesundheitspflege
The meeting at which Mr Loeffler was elected president began punctually at 9.15 a.m. with an enormous number of participants. In order to prevent extensive debates delaying completion of all six talks on the agenda, the chairman suggested holding the discussion after the six talks had come to an end, a suggestion which was unanimously adopted. Mr Loeffler gave the first talk on the results of research into foot-and-mouth disease. During his talk, he transferred the chairmanship to Mr Nocard. Mr Loeffler reported that the presumptive pathogen of foot-and-mouth disease could not be a microorganism that could be proven with current resources as, according to the investigations carried out by him and Prof. Frosch, the illness could be caused by using effective lymph from the vesicles, after this lymph had been filtered through narrow-pored Berkefeld filters that can retain even the smallest of bacteria. Loeffler stated that the fact that it could not be a matter of the effect of a toxin dissolved in the vesicular lymph was clear from the evidence that it had been possible to transmit the illness through six animals after another and from one animal to another using in each case 1/50 ml of such filtered lymph, even though the lymph obtained from each animal had been filtered again every time. If one assumed that every animal produced about 3 ml of lymph in the blisters and that each animal had excreted all the quantity of lymph used to infect it in this 3 ml, then the sixth animal must have been made ill with less than a two-billionth part of the original quantity of lymph used to infect the first animal. As after previous trials 1/50000 ml of fresh lymph was no longer effective,
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then reproduction of the virus must have occurred in the body of the animals. Loeffler said that the pathogen, therefore, had to be much smaller than the smallest bacteria previously known of. If it were only 1/5 the size of the smallest known bacilli, the influenza bacilli, then, according to the studies of Helmholtz and Abbe, it could no longer be detected by means of the capability of our optical systems. There would still be the possibility of providing evidence of the pathogen that was no longer detectable as a single individual with the aid of the culture method. All culture attempts had, however, not yet led to a positive result. To date, as the previously described trials had proven, the body of a susceptible animal had been the only culture substrate in which the pathogen could have reproduced. Loeffler stated that it was of great practical significance that it had been possible to establish an effective, practical protective vaccination procedure against the illness. Animals that had survived the illness were immune to the virus. About three weeks after surviving the infection, they could tolerate intravenous injection of large doses of effective lymph. Protective substances, able to render harmless the effective lymph that healthy animals are exposed to, were thus present in the blood of such animals. Such healthy animals that had been treated in advance with this serum-lymph mixture were protected from natural infection. It would, Loeffler stated, therefore be possible, with the aid of this method, to effectively combat the disease that causes huge losses for farmers every year and that substantially damages the prosperity of the nation.
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Addendum: Loeffler’s talk had been included in the programme at short notice, together with five other talks, two from German (Dönitz, Behring) and three from French (Nocard, Borrel, Metschnikoff) bacteriologists. The reactions of foreign colleagues to Loeffler’s
report are not known as a discussion had to be cancelled owing to time constraints.
Source: Deutsche Vierteljahreszeitschrift für öffentliche Gesundheitspflege, 30 (1898), pp. 777–806, here p. 783.
Hoechst is, according to the information I have received, now in a position to supply protective vaccination material sufficient for practical requirements.”50 At the beginning of November 1898, Farbwerke Hoechst announced that a vaccine would be produced in its bacteriological department with which animals could be immunised against FMD.51 The substance marketed under the name of Seraphthin (serum against aphthae52) turned out to be a failure just a few weeks after it was launched onto the market. On 22 December 1898, the District President of Wiesbaden informed the Prussian Ministry of Agricultural Affairs that more than 120 cows on three different dairy farms had fallen ill with the typical FMD symptoms after having been vaccinated with the Seraphthin produced by Farbwerke Hoechst.53 A similar case of illness after vaccination with Seraphthin was also reported in Munich.54 Although Farbwerke Hoechst had already stopped distributing the serum, the Minister of Agricultural Affairs expressly forbade the issuing of any more until new trials had confirmed it to be harmless. He sent the Minister of Cultural Affairs the report from Wiesbaden with the comment “With the acknowledged authority of Professor Löffler, I had no reason to prevent the issuing of the protective substance produced under the name of “Seraphthin” by Farbwerke Hoechst. Special approval to use the substance was, according to the legislation, not necessary and was neither requested from me nor given.”55 The reasons for the cases of illness that arose remained, at first, unclear. At ministerial request, Loeffler explained that, according to his investigations, lymph that had been too virulent had been added to the immunising blood serum.56 In order to avoid further “unwelcome incidents”, the Minister of Cultural Affairs deemed it necessary to transfer the control of Seraphthin to the Institute of Serum Research and Examination in Steglitz. In order to agree the further details, he arranged a meeting in Berlin for the beginning of March at which, among other people, the director of the institute, Paul Ehrlich (1854– 1915), Friedrich Loeffler and a director of Farbwerke Hoechst were also present. No further concrete steps followed, however, as the company did not resume production of Seraphthin. Despite this setback, Loeffler did not let himself be led astray in his research work. On 31 January 1899, the government commissioner in the Prussian House of Representatives reported that Loeffler believed he had found the error and was preparing a substance that should be free of the deficiencies of the first preparation. This news appeared to be all the more important
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Karl Köhler, circa 1890
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Friedrich Loeffler to the Prussian Minister of Culture, 19th February 1898, Greifswald Your Excellency, I have the honour in my capacity as Chairman of the Commission …. to respectfully report the following: In the “Health Office Budget” section of the Reichstag session held on 28th January of this year, the issue of combating foot-and-mouth disease arose. I was informed of the agenda by a member of the Reichstag and friend of mine and was, therefore, able to be present at the session. I was expecting the Director of the Health Office to report the results of the research on foot-and-mouth disease, which had been conducted by the Health Office and the Prussian Commission at the Institute of Infectious Diseases and disclosed in the Reich Commission convened in the Health Office on 14th January of this year and on whose progress I humbly informed Your Excellency. The Director of the Health Office … Köhler did indeed communicate the results of the research to date at the aforementioned session – without, however, to my great surprise, mentioning a single word about the Prussian Commission. Director Köhler’s action was all the more surprising to me as he had strongly emphasised at the start of the proceedings of the Reich Commission held on 14th January that every researcher was to be granted full authors’ rights. Although I was quite sure that I had not missed hearing any mention of the Prussian Commission, I nevertheless wanted to wait for the stenographic report of the session as well as for the report on the proceedings in the publications of the Imperial Health Office before deciding to raise an objection against the actions of the Director. In No. 7 of the publications of the Health Office of 16th February, which I have just received, the following passage, which is entirely in accordance with page 687 B of the stenographic reports of the session, can be found on page 145:
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‘The research into FMD, which has been conducted in the Health Department with the approval of the House, is compiled in a publication which will be distributed in the next few days in the House so that the gentlemen will be able to read about it themselves. Although we have not found everything we would have liked, we must in no way be dissatisfied with the results of the work. Much has already been achieved. I only need to refer to the fact that we now know that the germ can remain active longer than was previously assumed, that it is extraordinarily resistant particularly with regard to low temperatures, and, further, to the tests with immunisation, the results of which encourage their continuance. It has, therefore, been proposed by the allied governments that, in turn, a sum be allocated to the budget to enable the Imperial Health Office to continue these tests. There is the well-founded prospect that, after one year, we will be ahead of where we are today. No-one can promise that we will entirely achieve our goal, but there will certainly be no lack of good intentions.’ The official reports, therefore, concur entirely with my personal perceptions. The Prussian Commission was not mentioned. The members of the Reichstag and any reader of the publications of the Imperial Health Office must, according to this, gain the impression that it is the Health Office that conducted the important tests on immunisation, “the results of which encourage their continuance”. This, though, is not a fair view of actual events. In September 1897, the Prussian Commission already published a summary report on the results of its research in No. 39 of the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (German Medical Weekly), in which it stated that it had succeeded in immunising calves and pigs by means of different methods. In the Reich Commission session in the Health Office held
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on 14th January of this year, I explained the best method for immunisation, immunisation with effective lymph and the blood of well-immunised animals and reported that, using this method, the Prussian Commission had succeeded in immunising 95 % of pigs and 75 % of calves, not only against natural infection, but even against the intravenous introduction of a volume of lymph of which one hundredth would be enough to immunise a healthy animal with certainty. As I respectfully reported to Your Excellency, the representative of the Health Office, Dr Weisser, disclosed in the same session that he had managed to confirm the fact, established by us, that virulent lymph is rendered harmless by adding immune blood, but that he had not been able to achieve an immunising effect with the lymph/immune blood mixtures. In the same session I stated, after gaining an insight into the tests conducted at the Health Office, that, in all likelihood, the immunisation effect of the lymph/immune blood mixture claimed and established by us was not recognised and confirmed in the tests in the Health Office because the amount of lymph injected into the animals to test immunity was too much, an explanation which was immediately recognised as justifiable by Mr Weisser.
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The results encouraging the continuance of the immunisation tests have, therefore, been obtained solely by the Prussian Commission. In my view, justice would have demanded that Director Köhler openly recognised this fact before the representatives of the Reich. The Prussian Commission feels highly neglected due to Director Köhler’s omission and prejudiced in its scientific rights and, therefore, respectfully appeals to Your Excellency that Your Excellency grant your high protection to the Prussian Commission and allow all the facts to be aired truthfully. Source: BAB R 86 No. 4895
when, in the same session, good results with Hecker’s substance in the province of Saxony were reported.57 However, even this vaccine would soon turn out to be useless after an extensive check initiated by the Prussian Ministry of Agricultural Affairs was carried out. Owing to the analysis of, in total, 1000 vaccinations carried out on four farmsteads in the administrative districts of Wrocław, Potsdam and Frankfurt an der Oder, the ministry had come to the conclusion that it could not recommend the use of the substance in its current form either for protective or emergency vaccination purposes.58 After the failure of Seraphthin, Loeffler looked, above all, for ways to determine with certainty the fluctuating virulence of the lymph used. At the 6th International Veterinary Congress in Baden-Baden in August 1899, he announced that he had found a safe culture medium in piglets. According to his experiments, piglets that were between 4 and 5 weeks old died for sure within 26 hours when they were injected with 1/10 ml of fresh lymph whereas ¼ ml of serum was able to neutralise the lethal dose. Loeffler confidently announced that he would be able to offer a reliable and useable method of
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Main office of the Hoechst Farbwerke, 1893
vaccination by the end of the century.59 In actual fact, no further publications followed his announcements at first, for which, in view of his self-assured appearance in Baden-Baden in the following year, he was reproached by various sides.60 In the Reichstag session held on 13 January 1900, Schremp, a member of parliament, enquired about the progress made by the FMD research work that had received large amounts of financial support and added: “At the veterinary congress in Baden-Baden from 7 to 12 August last year, a Professor Loeffler from Greifswald claimed in no uncertain terms that science had now found an agent that would gain us as much control over this disease ‘by the end of the century’ as would be possible, i.e. to achieve at least demonstrable successes in the fight against the disease. I now do not know whether the professor is aiming for 1 January this year or only for 1 January next year (merriment), but I would, as I have said, be greatly interested in discovering, and I am sure all the parties concerned would: has the research into foot-and-mouth disease […] that has been carried out for the last 3 years […] led to any result or not?”61 In actual fact, Loeffler had used his favourable research findings with piglets as an opportunity to concentrate on the pragmatic implementation of a vaccination for pigs and sheep. He finally published the findings of the trials carried out by him and his colleague Paul Uhlenhuth (1870 –1957) at the end of 1900 and the beginning of 1901 in the BTW as well as in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift.62 His report stated: “If one mixes a dose of lymph that would be lethal for a piglet with an increasing quantity of serum and injects this mixture into a series of piglets, then one can see that, as from a certain dose of serum, the serum-lymph mixture not only no longer kills but does not even make [the piglets] ill. If one injects a series of piglets with increasing quantities of serum and then places
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Carl Hecker
Wilhelm Schütz
Karl Köhler
them in a livestock building in which there are nearly always newly-infected animals, i.e. if one exposes them to an intensive, natural infection, then the piglets will no longer fall ill as from a certain dose of serum.”
Friedrich Loeffler
7th International Veterinary Congress in Baden-Baden; participants included Friedrich Loeffler and Carl Hecker, 1899
According to Loeffler’s observations, this immunity lasted for between three and eight weeks, depending on the quantity of the serum injected. Loeffler made use of these findings to develop a vaccine for pigs and sheep. They were much smaller and less susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease than cattle. In order to obtain this serum, he used large animals such as cattle or horses that he had treated with an increasing quantity of lymph, up to 100 ml. However, this method was not suitable for a cattle vaccine due to the large quantities of serum required and the associated costs. Despite the failure of the launch of Seraphthin, Farbwerke Hoechst declared itself ready to start production of this new protective serum after thorough trials. The official testing stipulated by the ministry was carried out by Paul Ehrlich and his staff at the Institute of Hygiene in Greifswald, since the appropriate opportunities to do so at the Institute for Experimental Therapy in Frankfurt am Main were not in place. In actual fact, however, the second protective serum developed by Loeffler did not fulfil the expectations placed in it. Farbwerke Hoechst halted production in 1901, the same year it had been launched onto the market.63 Loeffler had to admit several times that his attempts “to find an effective and active vaccine by means of lymph as had been done with smallpox” had not led to any “useful results”.64 Even trials with lymph that had been weakened by being heated or stored in a refrigerator had not yielded any results that, from his point of view, allowed “this kind of immunisation in practice”.65 Although he continued his search for ways to achieve active immunisation,66 at the same time, he also increasingly directed his interests towards obtaining an effective protective serum for cattle, not least because it could – apart
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from a few side effects – be safely administered. In fact, his long years of trials to produce a highly effective serum made greater progress than the experiments carried out to develop an active vaccination using virulent lymph. He reported on this both at the 8th International Veterinary Congress in Budapest in September 1905 as well as to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in October 1905.67 By treating cattle with increasing quantities of lymph, he had, so he said, succeeded in obtaining a high quality serum that would protect cattle from infection for about 3 to 5 weeks after being injected with 60 –100 ml of it. In further trials, Loeffler discovered that cattle injected four times with about 20 ml of serum developed an immunity that covered a period of 5 months. Loeffler regarded the, in his view, successful use of his serum in isolated outbreaks of the disease in West Prussia, Brandenburg and Posen as confirmation of his procedure. The “question of a vaccination against footand-mouth disease for cattle, too” appeared to him to be “definitively solved” by the trials. At the same time, however, he had to admit that the production of such a highly effective serum was linked to considerable expense, which is why it was out of the question for general vaccination. As early as August 1898, in view of his work obligations – especially as Dean of the Medical Faculty in Greifswald – Loeffler had asked the Ministry of Cultural Affairs for permission to carry out further work at the Institute of Hygiene at Greifswald.68 The Minister of Cultural Affairs gave its approval in a communication dated 11 October 1898. At the same time, he informed Loeffler that he had requested the Minister of War to assign Paul Uhlenhuth to the Institute of Hygiene in Greifswald for the duration of the planned FMD research. Uhlenhuth had been commandeered as a senior physician to the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases and had been working for Frosch, who was on leave of absence, in the FMD commission since January 1898.69 With his transfer to Greifswald, Uhlenhuth assumed Frosch’s role completely, while Frosch took part in Koch’s malaria expedition to Grosseto and Brioni in the same year.70 In Greifswald, Loeffler at first continued his trials at the Institute of Hygiene in the middle of the town. Due to the smells constantly caused by the test animals, this led to protests from residents as well as from neighbouring home owners fearing a fall in the value of their properties. The curator of the University of Greifswald saw himself compelled to recommend to the ministry that, should Loeffler wish to continue his trials, a certain farmstead outside the town should be leased or bought. In September 1899, the Minister of Cultural Affairs approved the lease of the property as of 1 October 1899.71 In the following years, Loeffler regularly received an annual budget of 30,000 marks for further research into FMD. In addition, the experimental farm was bought for a total of 31,000 marks in 1902.72 In the Prussian House of Representatives, continuing ministerial support of Loeffler’s experiments met with only isolated objections; the provision of extraordinary funds was regularly approved.73 Only with the deliberations for the 1903 financial year did the renewed demand for 30,000 marks come up against any openly voiced objections. After the government commissioner in charge had justified the
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further support with the sums already spent, his personal review of the investigations as well as their prospects, Mr von Arnim, a member of parliament, referred to his own unfortunate experiences with Loeffler’s method and described the success to date as minimal. Despite lively interjections that required the point to be adjourned, the President of the House of Representatives brought the discussion to a close and declared the sum to be approved.74 In actual fact, Loeffler’s trials did not enjoy the progress expected by the state. In view of the unsuccessful research thus far – either from the point of view of a safe, active vaccination or a financially viable serum vaccination – and owing to the difficulty described by Loeffler himself of obtaining lymph of a constant efficacy, the Minister of Agriculture expressed doubts regarding a positive result in the foreseeable future for the very first time on 5 May 1905.75 The finance minister went even further and suggested, in the following year, putting a complete stop to the research.76 The continuation of the work on FMD was, however, not just at risk from state doubts but also from Loeffler’s all too careless handling of the dangerous pathogens and the lack of suitable measures to prevent the risk of the spread of infection. Even in April 1905, the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs, acting on information that the repeated FMD outbreaks in the province of Pomerania could have been caused by the trials conducted by Loeffler, had forbidden Loeffler to return the animals used in the experiments to the farmers that had loaned them out and had urged their “immediate slaughter” without exception.77 In February 1906, the agricultural association of the district of Franzburg reported repeated cases of FMD in the area around Greifswald due to the “dispatch of so-called immunised animals” and requested that Loeffler not be provided with any more funds for his trials.78 Finally, FMD broke out in the livestock of the girls’ home of the Johanna Odebrecht Foundation on 27 August 1906.79 The occurrence of the disease was immediately put down to the pathogen spreading from Loeffler’s neighbouring experimental farm. The Minister of Agricultural Affairs was overwhelmed from all sides with requests to order the closure or relocation of the experimental site. During the inspection of the farmstead by two ministerial civil servants from the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs on 31 August 1906, at which Loeffler as well as the departmental and district veterinary doctor were present, numerous shortcomings were uncovered: “At the time of the inspection, there were several head of cattle freshly afflicted with foot-and-mouth disease in one building on the experimental farm. The liquid manure ran out of this building into the unsurfaced farmyard in open gullies, where it gathered in several puddles. The dung from the contaminated building was taken to an open dung pit, where it lay exposed after having been strewn with lime. The dung pit was so full that slurry ran out of it and into the farmyard. Poultry (geese and chickens) were kept in a corner of the farmyard that was fenced off by a low wire fence.”
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Experimental farm on Gützkower Chaussee
These findings gave the visitors considerable cause for thought, particularly with regard to the requirements of the veterinary police. The Ministry of Agricultural Affairs urged the Ministry of Cultural Affairs to immediately implement considerable improvements and mount various protective measures, particularly as another outbreak of the disease that was traced back to the movement of persons on and off Loeffler’s experimental farm had been recorded near Greifswald. Thereupon, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs sent a specialist from its own department to Greifswald, namely Georg Gaffky, who had succeeded Koch as the Director of the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases. Together with Loeffler, his task was to check, on 21 September 1906, “to what extent the facilities and the operation of the farmstead give rise to hygienic concern, whether the hygiene measures specified in the letter of the Minister of Agricultural Affairs are, according to the opinion there, required or practicable, and what else is required to ensure the harmlessness of the scientific work on foot-and-mouth disease on the farmstead”.80 After the inspection, Gaffky was also convinced that the facilities of the experimental farm gave “cause for concern as far as hygiene was concerned”. The risk of a spread of infection was, in his opinion, possible not just through birds but also through the close contact between the hired hand and the diseased cattle. In order to prevent the spread of the disease, he recommended, in view of the practical successes achieved with the passive immunisation process, limiting the work to the production of a high-quality serum and made suggestions as to how to improve the hygienic conditions on the experimental farm. Just like Loeffler himself, Gaffky was also convinced that “vaccination using high-quality serum also for cattle should continue to be pursued and the construction of a serum institute that could satisfy all hygienic requirements should be considered”.81 Until then, however, the trials should continue to take place on the experimental farm.
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Gaffky’s suggestions were not taken up. In November 1906, the agricultural associations of Pomerania unanimously agreed to ask the state government for a general ban on Loeffler’s trials.82 Attacks followed, including from the group of those veterinary doctors who supported, above all, traditional methods of combating disease such as quarantines and slaughtering and who viewed with scepticism modern control methods developed as a result of bacteriology and immunology.83 In February 1907, the Ministry of Agricultural Affairs and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs instructed Loeffler in a joint letter to “immediately halt all research work on the farmstead and at the Institute of Hygiene at the university, even that already in progress, if this is not already the case”. Furthermore, they made it clear that any continuation of the trials would not “be considered for the time being” and that appropriate financial resources were not included in the draft of the state budget for 1907. They concluded by thanking the scientists at Greifswald for the “hard work rendered”.84 Two months later, Loeffler sent the final report regarding the FMD funds: “Thanks to the income from the serum supplied, I have succeeded in closing with assets of 3,832 marks and 26 pfennigs. Further expenditure is not expected. Only the keeper who lives on the farmstead will have to be paid until a decision regarding the farmstead is made. I request instruction as to whether he may be allowed to be paid out of the funds as, officially, the farmstead has stopped serving the purposes of research into foot-and-mouth disease since 1 April.”85
Abstract The history of the current Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health on the Isle of Riems near Greifswald, is closely associated with scientific research into foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), especially in its early years. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this highly contagious disease that predominantly affects pigs and cattle was the most economically significant animal disease in the world. The cause of the disease, however, was completely unknown. The establishment of bacteriology as a new leading science in the medical field, the spectacular evidence of pathogens and the development of effective vaccines and therapies also raised the issue of carrying out research into FMD. The people involved in agriculture, and their political representatives in particular, pressed for an effective search for the “infectious agent” and a suitable means to combat the disease. After two competitions initiated by the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture to discover the unknown infectious agent had not achieved the desired success, the Reichstag and the Prussian State Parliament approved a total of RM 55,000 for the systematic research into FMD in 1897. These sums were transferred, at the level of the empire, to the Imperial Health Office and, in Prussia, to the Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases headed by Robert Koch. The latter formed a commission to carry out research into FMD that was headed
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by the Professor of Hygiene at the University of Greifswald, Professor Friedrich Loeffler, a disciple of Robert Koch and a successful bacteriologist, along with the institute’s assistant, Paul Frosch. The experiments conducted by the commission soon led to sensational results. To begin with, the scientists ascertained that all bacteria previously described could be ruled out. Then they declared that the disease caused immunity in infected animals and that artificial immunisation by introducing fresh lymph from diseased animals or a mixture of fresh lymph and the blood of immune animals was possible. The work of the commission is regarded as a milestone in the history of microbiology, primarily because it described the FMD pathogen as a filterable, but “corpuscular”, replicating agent for the very first time in 1898. On the basis of these discoveries, Loeffler and Frosch, along with Dmitri Iwanowski and Martinus Beijerinck, are regarded as the founders of modern virology. In the period that followed, Loeffler mainly concentrated on producing a reliable protective serum but suffered several setbacks. He continued the experiments he had initiated in Berlin, first at the University of Greifswald as of the autumn of 1898, and, from 1899 onwards, at an experimental farm located outside the town of Greifswald. Loeffler, however, had to suspend these experiments in 1906 due to a ministerial order after repeated FMD outbreaks had occurred because of a lack of protective measures in the area around the test site.
* For readers whose primary interest is scientific, the German footnotes contain detailed information and references.
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