The Disproved Concept of the Protozoan Etiology of Smallpox*
Frank F. Katz, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Biology
Seton Hall University
South Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A.
*An earlier version of this paper, "The Disproved Concept of the Protozoan Etiology of Smallpox," was read at the Annual Fall Meeting of the Medical History Society of New Jersey, Wednesday, 4 October 2017, The Nassau Club, Princeton, New Jersey.
Keywords: Inclusions, intracellular bodies, protozoa, smallpox, vaccinia, variola, virus
Abstract
In the latter part of the 19th century, European investigators found microscopic objects in cells obtained from cases of smallpox. A. Van Der Loeff reported in 1887 these things had motility; they were considered to be protozoan parasites and the cause of the disease. In 1892, Giuseppe Guarnieri gave them the scientific name, Citoryctes variolae. They, therefore, became known as Guarnieri bodies and, in time, with other undefined intracellular objects, were named inclusion or elementary bodies found in the cytoplasm or nucleus. In the early 20th century, in the United States, the well-known pathologists, William T. Councilman, Walter R. Brinckerhoff, George B. Magrath and Frank B. Mallory, and the parasitologist, Ernest E. Tyzzer, and protozoologist, Gary N. Calkins, also concluded they were protozoans. Moreover, Calkins, in 1904, developed and produced the life cycle of this "organism." The protozoan etiology of smallpox was proven to be incorrect when, in 1905, Adelchi Negri reported the agent of variola to be filterable, an historical characteristic of viruses. With the establishment of techniques for the recovery and more accurate identification of disease-causing agents, it was confirmed that smallpox is due to a virus. Cytoryctes, once thought to be a protozoan, is now considered to be a cellular inclusion and the genus is only of historical interest.
Introduction
In his extensive study of early medicine, Reinhard Hoeppli (1893-1973) noted: "One will easily understand that during the very long periods when the cause of many diseases and pathological conditions were unknown, some of the common parasites were regarded as causative agents … [For example,] sudden death without obvious causes [being ascribed] to an ascaris which had entered the heart".[1]. Associating a disease with a parasitic roundworm such as Ascaris lumbricoides is understandable in view of its large size. There was also a time when certain diseases were thought to be caused by objects that were seen under a microscope and mistakenly identified as parasites. One of those diseases is smallpox.
The story of microscopic objects or bodies suggestive of parasites in histological preparations of tissues from smallpox cases may have begun with Joseph Louis Renaut (1844-1917) in 1881. According to Giuseppe Guarnieri (1856-1918), Renaut, in studying the formation of variola (smallpox) pustulation in stained specimens, observed intracellular spherical globules that he thought might be parasites.[2, p. 404-5]
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