RAMON, GASTON

(b. Bellechaume, France, 30 September 1886; d. Paris, France, 8 June 1963)

immunology.

Ramon completed his secondary studies at the lycée in Sens, then entered the veterinary school at Alfort, where he became interested in research. In 1911 he joined the Pasteur Institute at its Garches Annex, of which he was named director in 1926. In 1933 Ramon was appointed assistant director of the Paris Pasteur Institute, and, for several months in 1940, served as the sole director of the whole institute. From 1949 until his retirement in 1958 he was head of the Bureau of Epizootic Diseases in Paris.

Ramon made his most important discoveries during four years of intense research activity between 1922 and 1925. The first of these, the flocculation reaction, revolutionized the method of titrating anatoxins and microbial toxins. Ramon showed that when a zone of flocculation appears in a mixture of antitoxin and toxoid, the mixture is completely neutralized; the reaction therefore presented a simple way in which antitoxic serums might be standardized, and simplified the use of these substances.

Ramon also demonstrated a method, based upon what he called “the principle of anatoxins,” by which a potentially strong toxin could be subjected to the combined action of Formol and heat to yield ananatoxin—a new substance that is itself harmless, although it retains the ability to stimulate the formation of antitoxins. This simple procedure had a number of practical consequences, of which the most immediate was the preparation of effective vaccines, new in both their composition and their mode of action, against diphtheria and tetanus. The method was later applied in the production of antiviral vaccines, including those effective against aphtha and poliomyelitis.

Ramon also discovered the substances that he called “adjuvantes et stimulantes de l’immunité,” including calcium chloride, alum, and tapioca, which have the property of increasing the activity of antigens. These agents were first utilized in serotherapy laboratories to attain serums rich in antibodies, and they now play an important role in immunological research. His investigations of these substances led Ramon to the idea of “associated vaccinations,” and he developed the method of combining several antigenic substances into one vaccine. This technique has been successfully applied in man, and offers several immunities with a single injection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Ramon’s principal writings are Le principle des anatoxines et ses applications (Paris, 1950);La hate preventive centre les maladies infei’tienses deriwmme et des animaux domestiques an moyen des vaccins (Paris, 1955); and Quavante années de recherches et detravaux (Toulouse, 1960).

II. Secondary Literature. Sec R. Debré, A. Blaizot, R. Richou, et al., “Allocutions et discours,” in Revue d’épidéniotie, médecine sociale et santé publique, 15 , no. 8 (1967), 707–728; A. Delaunay, in Presse médicale71 , no. 40 (28 Sept. 1963), 1891; and Hommage à “Gaston Ramon (Paris, 1970), issued by the Pasteur Institute.

A. Delaunay