Nowhere to run, rabbit: the cold-war calculus of disease ecology.

During the cold war, Frank Fenner (protégé of Macfarlane Burnet and René Dubos) and Francis Ratcliffe (associate of A. J. Nicholson and student of Charles Elton) studied mathematically the coevolution of host resistance and parasite virulence when myxomatosis was unleashed on Australia's rabbit population. Later, Robert May called Fenner the "real hero" of disease ecology for his mathematical modeling of the epidemic. While Ratcliffe came from a tradition of animal ecology, Fenner developed an ecological orientation in World War II through his work on malaria control (with Ratcliffe and Ian Mackerras, among others)-that is, through studies of tropical medicine. This makes Fenner at least a partial exception to other senior disease ecologists in the region, most of whom learned their ecology from examining responses to agricultural challenges and animal husbandry problems in settler colonial society. Here I consider the local ecologies of knowledge in southeastern Australia during this period, and describe the particular cold-war intellectual niche that Fenner and Ratcliffe inhabited.

Myxomatosis in 1950s Britain.

In 1953 myxomatosis, a viral disease of rabbits, broke out in Britain for the first time. It rapidly killed tens of millions of the animals from Kent to the Shetlands. Many farmers and foresters welcomed a disease that virtually eliminated a longstanding and serious agricultural pest. Others were horrified by the sight of thousands of dead and dying animals. With meat still rationed, consumers rued the loss of a cheap and nutritious foodstuff. Rough shooters deplored the loss of prey and hatters and furriers the unavailability of the fur on which their businesses depended. Rabbits also had champions within the 'establishment'; these included Winston Churchill who was personally influential in making deliberate transmission of the disease a criminal offence. The arrival in Britain of myxomatosis presented the authorities with difficult questions: should they try to contain it, spread it or do nothing; should they take advantage of rabbit depopulation and try to exterminate such a destructive animal? In the event the outbreak was allowed to run its course and rabbit extermination became government policy. This article considers who or what was responsible for the disease reaching the UK and how it then spread throughout the country. It examines the responses of government, other institutions and members of the public. Finally, it explores the impact of rabbit de-population on agriculture, the natural environment and public opinion.

The group selection of variola minor in the Americas: an anthroponootic analogue for the myxomatosis epizootic in Australia.

It is an axiom of many parasitology texts that host-parasite systems coevolve toward a state approximating commensalism. While this hypothesis has an apriori intuitive appeal there is little empirical evidence to support it. The only documented case of a parasite evolving toward avirulence is the group selection of less virulent strains of the myxoma virus in the Australian rabbit population. It is hypothesized here that group selection also accounted for the appearance of variola minor in the Americas.