Scientists who kept animals. 1. Parr Tate, Canaries and Antimalarial Drugs

There are those who think people who keep or have kept animals (excluding pet dogs and cats) are strange. On the other hand there are those of us who think that those who do not keep animals are the oddities. It was while writing a Royal Society Biographical Memoir that it struck me that I should start a series on scientists who kept animals as a hobby or professional sideline, the latter activity in many cases not only stimulating an interest in the animal life but also contributing to success in the former. The trail I was following was in a field, parasitology, of which my knowledge is rudimentary. In a biographical memoir on Ann Bishop FRS (1899-1990), Len Goodwin FRS (1915-2008), the subject of the memoir I was co-authoring, and Keith Vickerman FRS (1933-2016) who when we used to meet for lunch in the late 1990s up to his serious accident in 2002 told me about some of his work on how trypanosomes avoid the host’s immune system, wrote:

In 1927…the Medical Research Council joined in the search for new antimalarial drugs. With money from the Council, compounds were synthesized in the chemistry departments of several universities and sent for testing for antimalarial activity at the Molteno Institute. At that time, the only infection available for laboratory tests was Plasmodium relictum in canaries, the vector being Culex pipiens. The uniqueness of the Molteno Institute in the testing of antimalarial drugs was due to Dr Parr Tate, an Irishman with a boyhood interest in breeding canaries and a regular prize winner at local shows in Cork.

Parr Tate (1901-1985) arrived at the Molteno Institute in Cambridge in 1924. After suffering severe asthma as a boy which meant that he could not attend school, instead relying on private tuition,  he had graduated from University College, Cork in 1923 and then completed an M.Sc. He stayed at the Molteno for 44 years, becoming its Director in 1953 until his retirement in 1968. Thereafter he divided his time between Cambridge and Cork with his sister; he died there in 1985.

Tate’s interest and skill in keeping, breeding and exhibiting canaries may not just have contributed to his later scientific career. Canaries and other birds are now well known to be responsible for some cases of asthma (Bird Fancier’s Asthma) in their keepers and others in the household.

Crompton DWT. Parr Tate, 1901-1985. 1986. Parasitology 93, 249-250. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182000051416

Goodwin LG, Vickerman K. 1992. Ann Bishop 19 December 1899-7 May 1990. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 38: 28–39.  doi:10.1098/rsbm.1992.0002