The Michael Heidelberger Papers

Title:

Letter from M. V. Lakshminarayan Rao, Central Food Technological Research Institute (Mysore, India) to Michael Heidelberger

Description:

Heidelberger spent six weeks in India in early 1952 as a delegate to the Indian Science Congress, held in Calcutta. While there he seized the opportunity to study the immunological properties of elephants, an idea first proposed, half jokingly, by Oswald Avery when he had become frustrated with the small amounts of antiserum produced by rabbits, the standard experimental animal in immunology. Heidelberger injected human gamma globulin into the ear vein of a work elephant, and found that the animal was indeed a good producer of antiserum to the gamma globulin. However, as this more detailed report of the results of the experiments by an Indian researcher made clear, cultural and economic objections among the mahouts, the caretakers and drivers of elephants, against the use of the animals for scientific experiments affected their availability for immunological studies.

Number of Image Pages:

5 (381,421 Bytes)

Date:

1953-08-13 (August 13, 1953)

Creator:

Rao, M. V. Lakshminarayan

Central Food Technological Research Institute

Recipient:

Heidelberger, Michael

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of the Central Food Technological Research Institute.

Subject:

Medical Subject Headings (MeSH):: Immune Sera; gamma-Globulins

Exhibit Category:

Antigens and Antibodies: Heidelberger and The Rise of Quantitative Immunochemistry, 1928-1954

Relation:

Letter from Michael Heidelberger to C. W. Shilling, United States Department of the Navy (February 11, 1952)

[Michael Heidelberger with delegates at the Indian Science Congress in Calcutta, India] [January 1952]

Box Number: 3

Folder Number: 6

Unique Identifier:

DHBBJQ

Document Type:

Letters (correspondence)

Reports

Language:

English

Format:

application/pdf

image/tif

Physical Condition:

Good

Folder: MS C 245 (first finding aid)

Metadata Last Modified Date:

2006-06-12

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