Max Theiler health at the Yale School of Medicine and the School of Public Health from 1964 to 1967. After passing the yellow fever virus through laboratory mice, Theiler found that the weakened virus conferred immunity on rhesus macaques. The stage was set for Theiler to develop a vaccine against the disease. Theiler first devised a test for the efficacy of experimental vaccines. In his test, sera from vaccinated human subjects were injected into mice to see if they protected the mice against yellow fever virus. This "mouse protection test" was used with variations as a measure of immunity until after World
Gertrud Theiler Africa, was named after Dr. Theiler in honor of the many years she dedicated to the collection. The argasid tick "Argas theilerae" (Hoogstraal and Kaiser, 1970), "Theiler's African white-backed vulture argasid," and the ixodid tick "Rhipicephalus gertrudae" (Feldman-Muhsam, 1960) were named to honor Dr Theiler for her many contributions to tick research. Theiler was the youngest daughter of Sir Arnold Theiler , founder and first director of the Veterinary Institute, Onderstepoort, and his wife, Emma Sophie Jegge; in 1971, she authored a biography of her father. She was a sister of virologist Max Theiler, who was awarded the 1951 Nobel