400 HOST-PARASITE RELATIONSHIPS 



his discussion largely to mice, he has also worked with large animals, chickens, viruses, 

 Drosophila, bees, plants, and other living forms. At this point, I might be tempted to 

 cite some obscure references from the literature, but, if I were to do so, I would likely 

 use one of Dr. Gowen's papers as a general source. His reviews have been both 

 thorough and penetrating. 462 ' 463, 464, 465 



Before proceeding with my own observations, it is appropriate to point out the 

 similarity between Dr. Gowen's researches on infectious disease and the cancer-research 

 program of the Jackson Laboratory. In both cases, the procedure is to investigate 

 thoroughly a limited number of forms of the disease. On the one hand, several inbred 

 strains differentiated on a basis of genetic resistance to murine typhoid are employed 

 along with a specific, pure strain of the pathogen, Salmonella typhimurium. On the other 

 hand, a few, specific, neoplastic diseases have been selected, along with special inbred 

 lines of mice; for example, C3H as an object for study of mammary tumors and 

 hepatomas. 



It also seems appropriate to give a short historical sketch. The year 1919 is of 

 particular significance as a starting point (work with plants started somewhat earlier, 

 with Biffen's demonstration in 1905 90 that resistance of certain varieties of wheat 

 to striped stem rust fungus depended upon a single gene). In 1919 Dr. Sewall 

 Wright began sending his surplus guinea pigs from Washington to Philadelphia, there 

 to be inoculated intraperitoneally or subcutaneously with human-type, tubercle 

 bacillus. The importance of host resistance was clearly demonstrated. Over 30 per 

 cent of the variation in survival time after inoculation in crossbreds was determined by 

 relationship to the best inbred family. 1457 The year 1919 was also the time of the great 

 influenza epidemic and this stimulated, on both sides of the Atlantic, work in experi- 

 mental epidemiology. W. W. C. Topley and associates in England, supported by the 

 Medical Research Council and L. T. Webster and associates at the Rockefeller Institute 

 in the United States, studied the natural history of typhoid in populations of mice. 1365 

 Host resistance, or susceptibility, was not emphasized at first but it was frequently 

 mentioned. 1325, 1364 This factor obviously could not be ignored and it became a 

 subject of major emphasis. 



The scene now shifts to the midwest where Professor W. V. Lambert, in 1924, 

 started his work on the inheritance of resistance to fowl typhoid in chickens. 746 Under 

 Lambert's direction similar work was initiated, using mouse strains obtained from 

 E. C. MacDowell, L. G. Dunn, L. C. Strong, and M. R. Irwin. A culture of the 

 organism, then named Salmonella aertrycke, was supplied in 1926 by W. W. C. Topley, 

 Public Health Laboratory, Manchester, England. R. G. Schott and H. O. Hetzer 

 completed their Ph.D. dissertations in 1931 and 1936 respectively. 573, 1167 When 

 Dr. Lambert was called to administrative duties elsewhere, Dr. Lindstrom, with 

 characteristic wisdom and foresight, induced Dr. Gowen to join the department at 

 Ames as Professor of Genetics. In Ames, Dr. Gowen, already a pioneer in the field 

 in his own right, picked up Dr. Lambert's work and also brought his own special 

 strains of mice from Princeton. Later he added the surviving lines from L. T. 



