Biographical Memoirs Volume 50 (1979) / Chapter Skim
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Frank Lappin Horsfall, Jr.
Frank Lappin Horsfall, Jr.
Pages 232-267
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HORSFALL, JR. was a clinician and a virologist whose influential leadership came primarily through his perceptive scientific experimentation, both in the laboratory and in the clinic, and also through his vast administrative skill.
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Midway through his college course he gave up the idea of becoming an engineer and decided to enter the medical profession. This involved some heroic scrambling to complete the course-work requirements, but in 1927 he followed in his father's footsteps by entering McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, and graduated in 1932, at which time he received the Holmes Gold Medal for having attained the highest scholastic record in his class.
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The staff members were both clinical and nonclinical, and there was a well-developed mystique among them concerning the catalytic effect which clinical contact had on basic research. A majority of the young people there were like Horsfall in that they came from purely medical backgrounds and were to spend formative postdoctoral years in this very stimulating environment learning, in an informal manner, the basic disciplines such as bacteriology, virology, immunology, and physiology.
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Commercial drug houses began producing rabbit antiserum, not only against types I and II, but also against a myriad of the rarer varieties. Horsfall, working with Kenneth Goodner, accompanied this clinical work with a tremendous burst of laboratory activity in which they studied the comparative immunology of horse and rabbit sera in detail.
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Thomas Rivers, who was a very influential person in American medicine at that time, was extremely devoted to Horsfall and played a large part later in promoting him as his own successor at the Rockefeller Institute Hospital. It came as no surprise when in 1937 Horsfall resigned from the Hospital and accepted a staff position with the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation.
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Horsfall became head of a laboratory section, previously organized by Thomas Francis, Jr., and the time seemed really ripe for developing a prophylactic agent against epidemic influenza. The virus of influenza had been isolated only four years before, and the Foundation offered Horsfall a very large technical staff, abundant laboratory space, generous financial support, and a sizeable professional staff that was equipped by experience to do large-scale fieldwork and to tackle epidemic problems on an international scale.
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He became involved with and obviously enjoyed the design and execution of mechanical projects like a low-temperature storage cabinet or a complicated ventilation system for a single room containing a large number of ferrets that had to be individually housed. The latter project was so successful that it enabled him to conduct experiments on the highly contagious distemper virus without danger of spontane.
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Later, some of these immunized animals were found to have mysteriously acquired high anti-influenza titers. It occurred to Horsfall at once that distemper virus infection might have some sort of cooperative effect in inducing high-level and persistent antibody responses to influenza virus.
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Not only was the distribution of inoculations carefully controlled, but a great deal of data was obtained on individuals through attempts at virus isolation and by determining pre- and post-infection antibody titers. Fortunately, the inoculations were completed a relatively short time before the onset of the epidemic, and the use of a large number of population groups proved valuable in the final analysis of the results.
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Even years later the secret of obtaining substantial and prolonged effects against epidemic influenza is still a formidable problem, and the earliest experiences with the "complex" vaccine were by no means unique. Just as the episode of the vaccine trial was coming to a close, Horsfall was called back to the Rockefeller Institute Hospital, where he received a lifetime appointment as a full member.
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received a thorough, although informal, education in the immunology, bacteriology, and virology of the day; and characteristically, as in the past, he continued to work in areas which were closely relevant to infections in man. Hospital beds were available, and the group took on as its main project the search for the etiology of a recently developed entity called atypical pneumonia.
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It is pertinent at this point to reemphasize the fact that Horsfall's training in basic disciplines was informal and that he approached his main problems, like atypical pneumonia, as a physician. This absence of formal scientific training was also true of the majority of students who came to work with Horsfall, many of whom settled into prominent academic clinical positions after leaving Rockefeller.
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had an even greater therapeutic effect, and it also worked very well on mumps virus infection, in which the growth of virus was markedly suppressed. All of the foregoing experiments were carried out on infections in complex organisms such as the developing embryo or the adolescent mouse.
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He was especially interested in the problem of antigenic strain differences between various influenza A isolates and did some very interesting work with I Archetti showing that the antigenic profile of a number of influenza stocks could be quickly and permanently altered by in ovo passage in the presence of appropriate antibody.
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He became further and further separated from the laboratory, where, fortunately, Igor Tamm was present to assist in carrying on the old tradition. Prior to this time almost all of Horsfall's papers were published uncler joint authorship, but thereafter he published alone, mainly reviews on such topics as chemotherapy of virus infections and others with which he was familiar.
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248 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS Replacing Cornelius Rhoades was difficult, for SIoan-Kettering at the time was virtually the single-handed creation of Rhoades, who had built it up in the course of some twenty years. He made many of the staff appointments ant!
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In addition he was a very important influence in the organization and development of the Health Research Council of New York City, which for many years played a very important role in public health research. To this sort of managerial responsibility Horsfall brought a very special talent.
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During his lifetime he received many honors, dating from the time of his graduation from Medical School. He was given the Eli Lilly Award in Bacteriology and Immunology in 1937, the Casgrain and Charbonneau Award in Medicine from McGill in 1942, the John Lewis Prize from the American Philosophical Society in 1959, and the 50th Anniversary Gold Medal Award of Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1963.
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127-32~. Informal short biographies by Igor Tamm, Alexander Beam, and Chester Southam were also available.
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I The relation of phospholipins to the type-specific reactions of antipneumococcus horse and rabbit sera.
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Antipneumococcus rabbit serum as a therapeutic agent in lobar pneumonia.
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Type specific antipneumococcus rabbit serum for therapeutic purposes.
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The correlation between neutralizing antibodies in serum against influenza viruses and susceptibility to influenza in man. Public Health Rep., 56:1819-34.
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Complement fixation with different antigens in primary atypical pneumonia.
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Med., 83: 105-32. Primary Atypical Pneumonia.
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Concurrent infection with influenza virus and mumps virus or pneumonia virus of mice (PVM) as bearing on the inhibition of virus multiplication by bacterial polysaccharides.
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Further studies on the associative reactions of pneumonia virus of mice (PVM) and influenza viruses.
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Interference between mumps virus and pneumonia virus of mice (PVM)
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Effect of sodium monofluoroacetate on the multiplication of influenza viruses, mumps virus and pneumonia virus of mice (PVM)
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Med., 98:245-59. 1954 Experiments on chemical alteration of virus infections.
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Reproduction of influenza viruses. Quantitative investigations with particle enumeration procedures in the dynamics of influenza A and B virus reproduction.
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Science, 133: 1059-60. Factors contributing to recovery from viral diseases.
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Foreword in honor of Thomas Milton Rivers. In: Perspectives in Virology III, ed.
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In: Biographical Memoirs, 38:263-94. New York: Columbia Univ.
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In: Macromolecules and Cancer, SloanKettering Institute for Cancer Research Symposium (New York 1965J. Cancer Res., 26:1957.
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