Person

Breinl, Anton (1880 - 1944)

Born
2 July 1880
Vienna, Austria
Died
28 June 1944
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Medical practitioner, Zoologist and Medical scientist

Summary

Anton Breinl was a highly respected medical scientist, whose expertise was in protozoology and tropical medicine. After receiving his medical degree in Prague he was a researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where he worked on tick fever and developed an organic arsenical cure (atoxyl) for sleeping sickness. A 1905 trip to Brasil to study yellow fever ended ingloriously with the loss of records and both Breinl and his companion, Harold Thomas, succumbing to the disease. For three years Breinl was Director of the School's Runcorn Research laboratory. In 1910 he arrived in Townsville, Queensland, as the first Director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine. He recruited staff, including a bacteriologist and a biochemist, oversaw the building of a laboratory, and established a research program that concentrated on mosquito-borne diseases, hookworm and filaria, and the physiology of working in tropical regions. During WWI the Institute's funding was severely curtailed. Breinl was subject to sustained racial criticism, and pressure from the Director of the Commonwealth Quarantine Medical Service, who wanted the Institute under his control in Sydney. Breinl resigned in 1920. He established a successful private practice in Townsville, continuing his association with the local hospital, including lecturing on midwifery to trainee nurses.

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Details

Chronology

1904
Education - Graduated in medicine, Charles University, Prague
May 1904 - 1907
Career position - John Garrett International Fellow in Bacteriology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
1905
Career event - Investigating yellow fever with Harold Thomas in Brasil
1907 - 1909
Career position - Director, Runcorn Research laboratory, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
1910
Award - Mary Kingsley Medal for Tropical Medicine, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom
January 1910 - October 1920
Career position - Inaugural Director, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Townsville
1914
Life event - Naturalised as an Australian citizen
1920 - 1944
Career position - In private practice in Townsville

Related Corporate Bodies

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

  • Harry Brookes Allen - Records, 1901 - 1917, MS 002; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

Published resources

Book Sections

  • Douglas, R. A., 'Breinl, Anton (1880-1944), medical scientist and practitioner' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 7: 1891 - 1939 A-Ch, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979), pp. 394-395. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070402b.htm. Details
  • Harloe, Lori, 'Anton Breinl and the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine' in Health and healing in tropical Australia and New Guinea, MacLeod, Roy and Denoon, Donald, eds (Townsville, Qld: James Cook University, 1991), pp. 34-46. Details

Journal Articles

  • Anon, 'Anton Breinl', Medical Journal of Australia, 1944 (2) (1944), 443. Details
  • Breinl, A. and Young, W. J., 'Tropical Australia and its settlement', Medical journal of Australia, 1 (20) (1919), 395-404, https://doi.org/10.5694/j.1326-5377.1919.tb30115.x. Details
  • Breinl, A. and Young, W. J., 'Tropical Australia and its settlement', Annals of tropical medicine and parasitology, 13 (4) (1920), 351-412. https://doi.org/10.1080/00034983.1920.11684211. Details
  • Douglas, R. A., 'Dr Anton Breinl and the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine I(-III)', Medical Journal of Australia, 1 (1977), 713-6, 748-51, 784-90. Details
  • Priestley, Henry, 'Obituary: Anton Breinl', Australian Journal of Science, 7 (1) (1944), 18-9. Details

Resources

See also

  • Angus, B. M.; Cannon, L. G. R.; and Adlard, R. D., 'Parasitology and the Queensland Museum, with Biographical Notes on Collectors', Memoirs of the Queensland Museum: Nature, 53 (2007), 1-156. Details
  • Howie-Willis, Ian, 'The pioneers of Australian military malariology: some biographical profiles (part 1)', Journal of Military and Veterans' Health, 24 (1) (2016), 12-24. Details
  • McGregor, Russell, 'Northern optimism: the Preliminary Scientific Expedition to the Northern Territory, 1911', Northern Territory Historical Studies, 24 (2013), 39-51. Details
  • Morison, Patricia, The Martin spirit: Charles Martin and the foundation of biological science in Australia (Canberra: Halstead Press, 2019), 296 pp. Details
  • Spencer, Margaret, Malaria: the Australian Experience, 1843-1991 (Townsville: Australian College of Tropical Medicine, 1994), 213 pp. Details

Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Helen Cohn

Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 6 October 2023

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