Visionary inventor of Virkon virucides
THOMAS Ralph Auchincloss was a remarkable Scottish athlete, scientist and businessman.
Born in Glasgow in 1923, he was the eldest son of the janitor of St Aloysius’s School. An exceptional all-rounder, head of school, captain of games and dux medallist, he also signed schoolboy forms for Celtic football club.
Wartime put a stop to these sporting notions, but a scholarship enabled him to study chemistry at Glasgow University.
He then joined the Jeyes Disinfectant Group, which was taken over by Cadbury-Schweppes in 1972,
However, he was at heart a scientist, with a very strong strategic vision. His close involvement with disinfectants had convinced him that while disinfection against bacteria, using relatively simple substances like Lister’s original carbolic acid, and the iodines and chlorines, had served mankind well for more than a century, the challenge of the 21st century would be very different--viruses.
He was certain that intensive livestock production, increased human population size, high human densities in cities and the transport potential of the aeroplane created significant risk to human survival.
He also believed he could produce an answer. He remembered, from his student days, a fascinating chemical reaction, basic to photosynthesis, called the Haber-Wilstatter reaction after two German-Jewish Nobel Laureates.
He believed this could be harnessed to allow the formulation of much better virucides.
Resigning his directorship with Cadbury Schweppes at the age of 54, he returned to the laboratory bench. Starting with one assistant, he formulated several hundred variants of his ideal virucidal disinfectant, utilising natural acids such as malic acid from apples as well as inorganic salts and oxidising compounds.
Eventually, he produced what he considered the ideal formulation, which was highly virucidal at low concentration yet, equally importantly, had excellent safety and environmental characteristics.
The various patented variants of Virkon, as he called it, are now the world’s most widely approved and tested virucides.
Scientists from the west of Scotland have had a quite disproportionate influence on the control of mankind’s pathogens.
Lister, Fleming, and Alick Isaacs, the discoverer of interferon, are all well recognised.
There are many involved in the international control of pandemic diseases in animals who would consider that T Ralph Auchincloss should be considered alongside them in terms of the importance of his contribution to human and animal and fish health by control of viruses.