Leeuwenhoek's Legatees and Beijerinck's Beneficiaries: A History of Medical Virology in The Netherlands offers a tour of the history of Dutch medical virology. Beginning with the discovery of the first virus by Martinus Beijerinck in 1898, the authors investigate the reception and redefinition of his concept in medical circles and its implications for medical practice. The relatively slow progress of these areas in the first half of the twentieth century and their explosive growth in the wake of molecular techniques are examined. The surveillance and control of virus diseases in the field of public health is treated in depth, as are tumour virus research and the important Dutch contributions to technical developments instrumental in advancing virology worldwide. Particular attention is paid to oft forgotten virus research in the former Dutch colonies in the East and West Indies and Africa.
Author(s): Gerard van Doornum, Neeraja Sankaran, Ton van Helvoort
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 360
City: Amsterdam
Cover
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Preface
1. Origins in the dark
Virus diseases in the Netherlands before the discovery of viruses
Smallpox, public health measures and immunization
Measles, lack of prevention?
Rabies, treatment and public health measures
Poliomyelitis, the summer disease
Influenza, not just a common cold
Human and animal medicine in the nineteenth century
Progress from confluence: The meeting of public health and laboratory science
2. Redefining viruses
The development and reception of the virus concept in the Netherlands
The discovery of a remarkable anomaly
Bacteriophages and the re-definition of viruses
Advances in virus research and the rediscovery of Beijerinck’s virus concept
The relevance of Beijerinck in the Dutch medical context
Viruses after the 1930s: New insights in light of technical developments
3. On the fringes
The Dutch work on viruses, 1900-1950
In the immediate wake of the first discoveries…
The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918: Its impact in the Netherlands
Dutch progress on rabies, smallpox, polio, and measles, 1900-1950
The early Dutch centres of activity on virus diseases
Amsterdam
Laboratory for Hygiene, University of Amsterdam, and Laboratory of the Department for Tropical Hygiene of the Colonial Institute
The State Veterinary Research Institute
Leiden
Laboratory for Tropical Hygiene, Leiden University
Laboratory for Bacteriology, Leiden University
Laboratory for Bacteriology and Experimental Pathology of the Netherlands Institute for Preventive Medicine
Clinic of Internal Medicine of the Academic Hospital
Utrecht
Laboratory for Hygiene, State University of Utrecht
National Laboratory of the National Institute of Public Health in Utrecht
Groningen
Laboratory for Hygiene, State University of Groningen
International developments in techniques
4. From cell culture to the molecular revolution
The rise of medical virology and its organization
The first wave: Virus culture
First wave developments in Dutch clinical virology
The second wave: Immunological and visualization techniques for rapid detection
Second wave developments in Dutch clinical virology
The third wave: The molecular revolution
Third wave developments in Dutch clinical virology
Public health laboratories and medical virology
The basic and the applied: Separate or joint ways of organization?
Dutch Societies and medical virology
The Netherlands Society for Microbiology
The Netherlands Society for Medical Microbiology
The Dutch Working Group for Clinical Virology
Expansion of the working group
Working group meetings
Epidemiological reports
Professionalization
Standardization and external quality control
The Working Group for Molecular Diagnostics of Infectious Diseases (WMDI)
European societies and Dutch medical virology
European Group for Rapid Viral Diagnosis
European Association against Virus Diseases
European Society for Clinical Virology
European Society for Virology
Waves of development and organization of clinical and fundamental virology
5. Medical virology in the Netherlands after 1950
Laboratories and institutes
The impact of the AIDS pandemic on Dutch virology
Amsterdam
University of Amsterdam and the Academic Medical Center (AMC)
State Veterinary Research Institute
Regional Public Health Laboratory of the Municipal Health Service of Amsterdam
Central Laboratory of the Netherlands Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service (CLB) and Red Cross Blood Bank of Amsterdam
VU University Medical Center Amsterdam (VUmc)
Amsterdam Cohort Studies (ACS)
Leiden
Leiden University Medical Centre
Laboratory of Bacteriology and Experimental Pathology and Central Clinical Virology Laboratory
Department of Clinical Respiratory Virology
Laboratory for Tropical Hygiene
Utrecht/Bilthoven
National Institute of Public Health and Environment Bilthoven
Laboratory for Medical Microbiology, UMC Utrecht
University of Utrecht, Veterinary Faculty
Groningen
UMC Groningen and Virology Unit of the Regional Public Health Laboratory of the Municipal Health Service
Nijmegen/Tilburg
Radboud University Nijmegen
St Elisabeth Hospital, Tilburg
Rotterdam
Regional Public Health Laboratory of the Municipal Health Service of Rotterdam
Erasmus MC
Maastricht
Maastricht UMC
General hospitals
Military Medical Service
Commercial companies
Philips Duphar
Organon Teknika
Crucell
Delft Diagnostic Laboratory (DDL)
Viroclinics Biosciences BV
6. Techniques and instruments
Their introduction in the Netherlands and the main contributions of the Dutch
Four types of filters
Light microscopy
Tissue culture – early days
Tissue culture and cell monolayers
Cell culture and vaccine production
Phase-contrast microscopy
Electron microscopy
Reception of the electron microscope in the virology field in the Netherlands
Immunofluorescence
Enzyme-immunoassay or enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
Agar gel electrophoresis
Introducing DNA into mammalian cells
Pepscan and combinatorial chemistry
Nucleic acid purification
Nucleic acid extraction and the isothermal nucleic acid sequence-based amplification
Excerpta Medica
Conclusion: Offstage in the spotlight
7. Dutch virology in the tropics
From colonial to international virology
Indonesia and the former Dutch East Indies
Smallpox
Yellow fever, dengue and scrub typhus
Poliomyelitis
Rabies
Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, former West Indies
Smallpox
Yellow fever
Dengue
Other arboviruses
Poliomyelitis
Rabies
Africa: Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia and West Africa
Kenya
Uganda
Ethiopia
West Africa
Accessibility of essential medicines
8. From cancer mice in the roaring 1920s to oncogenes and signalling molecules in the booming 1990s
Amsterdam
Netherlands Cancer Institute
Laboratory for Hygiene, later the Department of Medical Microbiology and the Department of Virology, University of Amsterdam
Department of Pathology, Free University of Amsterdam
Leiden
Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Leiden University
Laboratory of Immuno-haematology, Leiden University
Utrecht
Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry, Utrecht University
Nijmegen
Laboratory for Biochemistry, Department of Biochemistry, Radboud University
Rijswijk
Radiobiological Institute and Primate Centre
Rotterdam
Erasmus MC
Groningen
Laboratory of Molecular Virology, State University of Groningen
Delft/Rijswijk
Delft Diagnostic Laboratory
Working Group on Persistent Virus Infections and Oncogenesis
Conclusion
9. Virus vaccines and immunization programmes
Introduction
Smallpox vaccine
Rabies vaccine
Poliomyelitis vaccine
Rubella, mumps, measles combination vaccine
Special Department Immunobiology
Influenza vaccine
Influenza immunization in specific risk groups
Commercial production of influenza vaccines
Hepatitis B vaccine
Production of hepatitis B vaccine in the Netherlands
Occupationally acquired infections in vaccine-production laboratories
Cooperation in the development of vaccine-production methods
Ultimate sale of public health sector vaccine production
Success of the RVP
10. Conclusions
List of institutes and laboratories
References
Index
Index of names
Index of subjects
List of illustrations
Figure 1 Jan van der Noordaa (1934-2015)
Figure 2 Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
Figure 3 Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Figure 4 Jan Ingen Housz (1730-1799)
Figure 5 M.W. Beijerinck (1859-1931)
Figure 6 L.W. Janssen’s (1901-1975) hypothetical scheme to interpret biochemical findings: normal situation
Figure 7 L.W. Janssen’s (1901-1975) hypothetical scheme to interpret biochemical findings: virus infection of a host cell
Figure 8 Plaque at entrance of Institute for Tropical Hygiene, Amsterdam
Figure 9 The staff members of the Laboratory for Tropical Hygiene, Amsterdam
Figure 10 P.C. Flu (1884-1945)
Figure 11 Institute for Tropical Medicine and Laboratory for Tropical Hygiene and Parasitology, Leiden
Figure 12 Entrance of Institute for Preventive Medicine, Leiden
Figure 13 R. Gispen (1910-2000) and Jacoba G. Kapsenberg
Figure 14 John F. Enders (1897-1985)
Figure 15 F. Dekking (1913-2004)
Figure 16 Collaborators of the Amsterdam Cohort Studies on HIV infection and AIDS (1998)
Figure 17 Collaborators of the Erasmus MC Department of Virology (2019)a: A.D.M.E. Osterhaus; b: R.A.M. Fouchier; c: G.F. Rimmelzwaan
Figure 18 Equipment for purification of a poliovirus by means of gel filtration
Figure 19 Presentation of the EM 100 at Philips in 1949
Figure 20 A. Schuurs and B. van Weemen on the occasion of the presentation of the Saal van Zwanenberg Prize in Nijmegen, 22 April 1980
Figure 21 Sophronisba: of, de gelukkige moeder door de inëntinge van haare dochters (Sophronisba; or, The happy mother who had her daughters inoculated), 1779
Figure 22 Institute Pasteur and s’Lands Koepok Inrichting, Bandung
Figure 23 Nairobi Medical Research Centre
Figure 24 D. Metselaar (1914-2006) in northern Kenya
Figure 25 R. Korteweg (1884-1961)
Figure 26 A working map of the mouse int-1 locus as drawn by Roel Nusse used from 1982 to 1984
Figure 27 Inoculation of fertilized eggs for the cultivation of influenza virus
Figure 28 A cell culture forming a monolayer four days after inoculation
Figure 29 Roel Nusse and Harold Varmus as enthusiastic cyclists
