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Marion Dorset

Animal Sciences

Marion Dorset was an American scientist with the United States Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal Industry who identified the cause of hog cholera and developed the serum that controlled it. Working with fellow researcher Emil A. de Schweinitz, Dorset determined in 1903 that hog cholera was caused by a filterable virus rather than a bacterium, and the pair showed that injecting an antibody serum followed by a dose of the live virus conferred long lasting immunity in hogs. In 1906 Dorset patented the method for manufacturing hog cholera serum and the serum-virus vaccination technique, then declared the invention free for anyone in the country to use; the resulting serum-virus vaccine protected American hog herds for roughly the next fifty years.

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Dorset led the Bureau of Animal Industry research that developed the hog cholera serum.

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