Gerhard Gottfried Kind qualified as a veterinarian at the University of Zurich in 1918 by passing the Swiss Staats Examen. He came to South Africa in 1919 under a three year contract as research officer at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute. There he succeeded D. Kehoe* as the person mainly responsible for the production of anthrax vaccine. Kehoe had reported on problems experienced with the type of vaccine developed by the Pasteur Institute in 1918, and it was therefore decided to develop a spore vaccine, a type that had already been introduced with good results in Australia. Kind was able to attenuate South African strains of the anthrax bacillus and to produce a satisfactory spore vaccine which gave very good immunity. He was awarded the Doctor Medicae Veterinariae (Dr Med Vet) degree in Zurich in 1922 for his thesis Beitraege zur activen Immuniserung gegen Milzbrand (Contributions to active immunisation against anthrax). The results of seven years' experience with his vaccine were reported by P.R. Viljoen* and others in 1928.

Kind was blamed for an incident when stables at Onderstepoort became infected with anthrax and one of the staff members contracted the disease. He was regarded by co-workers as a "good but bad-tempered worker" and was dismissed at the end of his 3-year contract. He further distinguished himself by taking the minister to court over a salary dispute. He took up private practice in Pretoria in 1922, but by 1929 had moved to Johannesburg where he remained until his death. He became a member of the South African Veterinary Medical Association in 1928.

Kind's publications in the Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association included papers on the immunizing properties of formolised horsesickness virus (1933, 1934) and the diagnosis of Torsio Uteri in cattle (1939).

Kind was first married to Olive M. Hogg. After their divorce in 1932 he married Lilith M.E. Marais, born Thompson. He had five children.

List of sources:
Curson, H.H. The veterinary profession in South Africa. 6: Theses for the doctorate. Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association, 1933, Vol. 4(3), pp. 186-188.

Google scholar. http://scholar.google.co.za Publications by G.G. Kind.

Gutsche, T. There was a man. The life and times of Sir Arnold Theiler, KCMG. Cape Town: Timmins, 1979.

National Archives Repository (TAB), Source MHG, Vol. 0, Ref. 3682/42: death notice, Gerhard Gottfried Kind.

Obituary: Gerhard Gottfried Kind. Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association, 1942, Vol. 13(4), pp. 130-131.

Pospischil, A. Arnold Theiler and colleagues: a successful cooperation between Switzerland and South Africa (2020). https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/74444

Posthumus, P.J. Past veterinarians in South Africa (10th edition), Vol. 1, [1992].

Register of veterinarians of the Union of South Africa... Journal of the South African Veterinary Medical Association, 1929, Vol. 1(3), pp. 77-83.

Robinson, E.M. The development of veterinary bacteriology in South Africa. South African Journal of Science, 1932, Vol. 29, pp. 41-53.

Compiled by: D.W. Verwoerd

Last updated: 2025-05-01 11:21:24