In remembrance of our Fellows

Bruce Merton McIntosh, DVSc, DSc (1919-2005)

Dr Bruce McIntosh (“Dr Mac”) died on the 16th April 2005, at the age of 86. Although not a Fellow of this Society, Bruce McIntosh’s contribution to arbovirus research in the tropics was particularly pioneering. Bruce was born in Durban, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa on the 23 rd February 1919. He spent his childhood and youth on the family farm near Harding on the southern KwaZulu Natal coast. It was here that he developed his love for natural history, particularly ornithology that would prove so useful in his subsequent career. He matriculated at Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg and later, in 1942, graduated as a veterinarian at the University of Pretoria. In the same year he married Virginie (“Veenie’) Forder.

During the Second World War he served as a lieutenant in the South African Veterinary Corps and saw active service in the Indian Ocean and the Far East fighting the Japanese. After demobilisation, he joined the Government Veterinary Service in Port Shepstone but later joined the Veterinary Research Institute at Ondersterpoort in Pretoria as a virologist. There he identified the various serotypes of African Horse Sickness (AHS) virus being awarded a DVSc degree by the University of Pretoria in 1955 for this study. In 1955/56 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Animal Virus Research Institute, Pirbright, England where he undertook further work on AHS virus. His work still stands as the basis for the classification of AHS viral strains today.

In July 1960 the last Rockefeller staff members returned to the USA from Johannesburg where they had established an Arbovirus Research Unit jointly with the South African Institute for Medical Research (SAIMR) at the laboratories of the Poliomyelitis Research Foundation (PRF). Bruce had been taken on as a virologist in this Unit in 1957 and was made head of the Unit in July 1960. He and his colleagues did pioneering work isolating many new arboviruses, especially from mosquitoes collected in the Ndumu Game Reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal. From 1960 until his retirement in February1982, he led the Unit in research focused upon the ecology and epidemiology of arboviruses, which had been shown as important causes of medical and/or veterinary disease. These included West Nile, Sindbis, Chikungunya, Wesselsbron and Rift Valley viruses. During this period the Department of National Health took over the PRF laboratories so that the Arbovirus Unit became part of the National Institute for Virology. Bruce also served as an honorary Senior Lecturer in Tropical Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand and published numerous original papers in a variety of scientific journals.

Bruce and his colleagues did field studies throughout southern Africa and these were combined with the relevant laboratory work to determine the natural transmission cycles of the arboviruses concerned. Although primarily a virologist he also took a keen interest in the entomological aspects of arboviral research and trained himself to become a competent mosquito taxonomist as is evident from his papers that updated the taxonomy of 3 of the subgenera of Aedes namely Neomelaniconium, Ochlerotatus and Aedimorphus. Before retiring in 1982, Pretoria University awarded Bruce a DSc degree for a thesis entitled ‘The Epidemiology of Arthropod-borne viruses in southern Africa’.

On his retirement Bruce returned to Port Shepstone where he became enthusiastically involved in nature conservation. He was able to devote more time to his two great interests: bird watching and wildlife. He made a major contribution to the bird atlas project for southern KwaZulu Natal. It is a tribute to his congenial nature that there were always staff members of other Units who wanted to transfer to the Arbovirus Unit! Bruce will be fondly remembered by his colleagues in arbovirology, entomology and veterinary science. He leaves behind three children Judy, David and Peter, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.

Peter G Jupp
Formerly Entomologist to the Arbovirus
Research Unit,
31 Ravenswood,
George Street,
Port Alfred 6170
SOUTH AFRICA