The University of North Carolina Herbarium
(NCU) has catalogued only about half a dozen specimens collected by Don E.
Eyles. They were collected in 1940 and 1941, and about half were collected
with Mary S. Eyles. Eyles was by profession a parasitologist, but was a
serious student of ornithology and botany.
Don Eyles was born 4 September 1915 to Francis
L. and Mory A. Eyles. The 1920 US Federal Census lists the Eyles family as
living in Atlanta, Georgia, and consisting of parents Francis L. (age 37),
Mory A. (35), Francis L. (11), Don E. (4), and Ruth (1 month).
Don Eyles died on 4 October, 1963, and was
buried in Arlington National Cemetery (Section 35, Site 2147) in Virginia.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bruce-Chwatt, L. J. (1963) Dr. Don E. Eyles. Nature 200
(4908): 733
Dr. Don E. Eyles died on October 4, 1963, of
coronary thrombosis on board ship in Penang, Malaysia, a few hours before he
and his family were due to return to the United States. This sudden death of
an outstanding scientist and excellent colleague was particularly tragic, as
Dr. Eyles was about to retire after twenty-four years' work for the U.S.
Public Health Service to join the Lahore (Pakistan) Unit of the Institute of
International Medicine of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Dr. Eyles was born in 1915 in Atlanta, Georgia, and obtained his M.S.
(Biology) at Emory University and his Sc.D. at the Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore.
During the early period of his academic life he
was interested in ornithology and medical entomology, but later much of his
work was connected with investigations on malaria imported into the United
States by returning Service-men, and with curative action of drugs against
relapsing malaria infections. The difference between the effect of
pyrimethamine and primaquine on the tissue forms of malaria parasites became
clear as a result of this work. The curative action of pyrimethamine and
sulphadiazine, and the synergistic effect of these drugs in toxoplasmosis,
were reported by Eyles et al. in 1952, and these findings were promptly
confirmed in acute and chronic forms of the disease. Much knowledge of the
epidemiology of toxoplasmosis was due to the work of Eyles on the relationship
between the infection in domestic animals and its transmission to man.
In 1960 Dr. Eyles, taking a clue from his
accidental laboratory infection, showed that Plasmodium cynomolgi
bastianellii of monkeys can be transmitted to man through a
mosquito. This stared much now and still expanding research on the
possibility of simian malaria as an anthropozoonosis.
In 1961 Dr. Eyles was given the task of
establishing a research unit of the U.S. Public Health Service in Malaya and
he went to the Far East companied by his wife and three children. The
research unit was set up at the Institute for Medical Research in Kuala
Lumpur and within less than three years Eyles and his Malaysian, American,
British and Australian colleagues produced a remarkable series of
investigations which have greatly extended our knowledge of simian malaria.
Five new species of malaria parasites of Malaysian monkeys and of a
moose-deer were discovered and their relationship to a number of anopheline
vectors was established.
A new area for further research of considerable
fundamental and practical importance was thus opened in a field that until
recently seeded to be uninspiring and well-trodden. The impetus given in this
was to the investigation of simian malaria was characteristic of Eyles’s
vision, determination, leadership and phenomenal energy. During the past year
Eyles was greatly interested in the problem of resistance of human plasmodia
to synthetic drugs and particularly 4-aminoquinolines. He left a number of
papers which are now awaiting publication.
Some of us who saw Eyles in September at the
International Congresses of Tropical Medicine in Rio de Janeiro and who heard
his summary of the work carried out in Malaya could not help saying that he
seemed to be in a hurry to complete one job and to start another. He was in a
hurry, indeed for this “appointment in Penang”.
Eyles’s work resulted in more than a hundred
publications. He has demonstrated his qualities as an administrator of a
research laboratory and his brilliance and versatility as an investigator of
general and specific problems in parasitology. One of Eyles’s most important
assets was his ability to work with a team; he has undoubtedly stimulated in
others as much research as he has been personally responsible for. His
proficiency in experimental work in parasitology was equaled by his general
knowledge of ornithology, botany and entomology. He was an intensely live
individual – an inveterate collector of almost anything, biological or
otherwise – universally liked and admired by those who have had the good
fortune to know him during his short, happy and fruitful life.
PUBLICATIONS (incomplete list)
Eyles, Don E.; Dunn, F. L.; Warren,
McWilson; Guinn, Elizabeth SO (1963) Plasmodium coatneyi from the
Philippines. The Journal of Parasitology 49(6): 1038.
Eyles, Don E. (1963) The Species of Simian
Malaria: Taxonomy, Morphology, Life Cycle, and Geographical Distribution of
the Monkey Species. The Journal of Parasitology 49(6): 866-887.
Eyles, Don E.; Warren, McWilson (1963)
Hepatocystis from Macaca irus in Java. The Journal of Parasitology
49(6): 891.
Eyles, Don E.; Warren, McWilson (1962) Plasmodium
inui in Sulawesi. The Journal of Parasitology 48(5): 739.
Wharton, R. H.; Eyles, Don E.; Warren, McWilson; Moorhouse, D. E. (1962) Anopheles
leucosphyrus Identified as a Vector of Monkey Malaria in Malaya. Science
137 (2532): 758.
Sandosham, A. A.; Wharton, R. H.; Warren, M.; Eyles, D. E. (1962)
Microfilariae in the Rhesus Monkey (Macaca mulatta) from East
Pakistan. The Journal of Parasitology 48 (3): 489.
Eyles, Don E.; Coatney, G. Robert; Getz, Morton E. (1960) Vivax-Type
Malaria Parasite of Macaques Transmissible to Man. Science 131 (3416):
1812-1813.
Eyles, Don E. (1960) Anopheles freeborni
and A. quadrimaculatus as Experimental Vectors of Plasmodium
cynomolgi and P. inui. The Journal of Parasitology 46(5):
540.
Wharton, R. H.; Eyles, Don E. (1961) Anopheles
hackeri, a Vector of Plasmodium knowlesi in Malaya. Science 134(3474):
279-280.
Jones, Frances E.; Melton, Marjorie L.; Lunde, Milford N.; Eyles, Don E.;
Jacobs, Leon SO (1959) Experimental Toxoplasmosis in Chickens. The Journal of
Parasitology 45(1): 31-37.
Eyles, Don E.; Coleman, Nell; Cavanaugh, D. J.
(1956) Preservation of Toxoplasma gondii by Freezing . The Journal
of Parasitology 42(4): 408-413.
Eyles, Don E.; Coleman, Nell (1956) Relationship
of Size of inoculum to Time to Death in Mice Infected with Toxoplasma
gondii. The Journal of Parasitology 42(3): 272-276.
Young, Martin D.; Eyles, Don E.; Burgess, Robert
W.; Jeffery, Geoffrey M. (1955) Experimental Testing of the Immunity of
Negroes to Plasmodium vivax. The Journal of Parasitology 41(3):
315-318.
Eyles, Don E.; Gibson, Colvin L.; Jones, Frances
E.; Cuningham, M. E. G.(1954) Prevalence of Dirofilaria immitis in
Memphis, Tennessee. The Journal of Parasitology 40(2): 216-221.
Eyles, Don E.; Jones, Frances E.; Jumper, John
R.; Drinnon, Virginia P. (1954) Amebic infections in dogs. The Journal of
Parasitology 40(2): 163-166.
Eyles, Don E. (1954) Serologic Response of White
Rats to Toxoplasma Infection. The Journal of Parasitology 40(1): 77-83.
Eyles, Don E. (1952) Toxoplasma in the Norway
Rat. The Journal of Parasitology 38(3): 226-229.
Eyles, Don E. (1952) Incidence of Trypanosoma lewisi and Hepatozoon
muris in the Norway Rat. The Journal of Parasitology 38(3): 222-225.
Eyles, Don E. (1950) A Stain for Malarial
Oocysts in Temporary Preparations. The Journal of Parasitology 36(5): 501.
Eyles, Don E. (1950) Quantitative studies on
certain factors influencing the development of Plasmodium gallinaceium
in the mosquito host. Thesis (Sc.D.) Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Maryland, USA.
Goodwin, M. H., Jr.; Eyles, Don E. (1942) Measurements of Larval Populations
of Anopheles Quadrimaculatus, Say. Ecology 23(3): 376.
Eyles, Don E. (1941) A photosociological study of the Castalia-Myriophyllum
community of Georgia coastal plain boggy Ponds. American
Midland Naturalist 26(2): 421-438.
