MORE ON THE ARMAND-DELILLE RABBIT MEDAL
The E-Sylum (2/1/2009)
Book Content
You can learn the most interesting facts through numismatics. Last week Ed Snible asked if anyone could locate an image of a medal awarded to Paul Felix Armand-Delille, "a French professor who accidentally killed 98% of the rabbits in Europe during the 1950s." Top that, Elmer Fudd.Ever quick on the trigger, Gar Travis was the first to submit an image shortly after our issue was published last Sunday. Ron Haller-Williams also located this reference.
In 1952, at the age of 78, Delille
introduced myxomatosis to France and thence to Europe by inoculating two rabbit on his estate with virus derived from a type culture collection in Lausanne, an act for which he was reviled by rabbit breeders, furriers and hunters but praised by farmers and foresters.
For more information, see: Myxomatosis in France (feuilleuse.free.fr/mixo.pdf)