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![Releasing the Myxoma Virus for Rabbits]( "Releasing the Myxoma Virus for Rabbits")
![File:Rabbits MyxomatosisTrial WardangIsland 1938.jpg]()
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Experimental laboratory, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4509 Myxomatosis kit c 1951.png]()
Myxomatosis kit, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1951 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4844 Myxomatosis experiment Sherwood c 1952.png]()
![File:6136 PHIL scientists PPE Ebola outbreak 1995.jpg]()
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Waterloo, Sierra Leone: Women faints as another reacts while volunteers (unseen) take away the body of a woman who died of Ebola: photo by Florian Placheur/AFP/Getty Images via the Guardian, 7 October 2014
Releasing the Myxoma Virus for Rabbits. Rabbits were introduced to Australia by early European settlers, and by the 20th century has become a plague. They ravaged the country, destroying pastures, crops and native species. In the early 1930s Dame Jean Macnamara (and others) called for the importation of the myxoma virus as a means of control. Lionel Bull, Chief of the CSIR Division of Animal Health and Nutrition, released the first infected rabbits on 16 November, 1937 on Wardang Island, South Australia. By the 1950s the deadly virus had caused an epidemic and killed off much of the wild rabbit population: photographer unknown, 1937 via CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization)
Caught in the centre of a soundless field
While hot inexplicable hours go by
What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed?
You seem to ask.
.....I make a sharp reply,
Then clean my stick. I’m glad I can’t explain
Just in what jaws you were to suppurate:
You may have thought things would come right again
If you could only keep quite still and wait.
Philip Larkin (1922-1985): Myxomatosis, 1954, from The Less Deceived, 1955
Myxomatosis is a highly infectious viral disease affecting rabbits, characterized by fever, swelling of the mucous membranes, and presence of myxomata (an acellular slime mould). It was first observed in Uruguay in the late 19th century, effectively developed for rabbit population control in the twentieth century in Australia, and soon spread to Europe. An epidemic of myxomatosis killed millions of rabbits in England in 1953. In that initial outbreak rabbits lacking immune resistance to the disease typically succumbed within forty-eight hours. One of the most visible symptoms noted in affected rabbits was a crippling lethargy.
Rabbits around a waterhole at the myxomatosis trial enclosure on Wardang Island: photographer unknown, 1938 (National Archives of Australia
Experimental laboratory, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
Myxomatosis kit, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1951 (Queensland State Archives)
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4847 Myxomatosis experiment Sherwood c 1952.png]()
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4855 Myxomatosis experiment Sherwood c 1952.png]()
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4849 Myxomatosis experiment Sherwood c 1952.png]()
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
![File:Queensland State Archives 4850 Myxomatosis experiment Sherwood c 1952.png]()
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
A baby rabbit
With eyes full of pus
This is the work
Of scientific us
-- Spike Milligan (1918-2002)
![File:Myxomatosis on Voorne, Netherlands 1963.jpg]()
Myxomatose op Voorne. Een konijn door de ziekte aangetast: photo by Winfried Walta / Anefo, 10 October 1963 (Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau [ANeFo], 1945-1989)
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
Myxomatosis experiment, Sherwood: photo by Lands Department, Survey Office, Cartographic Branch, Photographic Section, c. 1952 (Queensland State Archives)
A baby rabbit
With eyes full of pus
This is the work
Of scientific us
-- Spike Milligan (1918-2002)
Myxomatose op Voorne. Een konijn door de ziekte aangetast: photo by Winfried Walta / Anefo, 10 October 1963 (Dutch National Archives, The Hague, Fotocollectie Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau [ANeFo], 1945-1989)
Scientists with personal protective equipment (PPE) testing samples from animals collected in Zaire for the Ebola virus: photo by Ethleen Lloyd / Centers for Disease Control, 1995 (Centers for Disease Control /U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
But would things come right again if you could only keep quite still and wait?
Waterloo, Sierra Leone: Women faints as another reacts while volunteers (unseen) take away the body of a woman who died of Ebola: photo by Florian Placheur/AFP/Getty Images via the Guardian, 7 October 2014