Anton Breinl

Anton Breinl (2 July 1880 – 28 June 1944) was a medical practitioner and medical researcher, who established the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

Anton Breinl was born on 2 July 1880 in Graslitz, Bohemia (now Kraslice in the Czech Republic), the son of Arthur Breinl, lace manufacturer, and his wife Ina Leopold (née Stammhammer). He was educated in Vienna and then took his medical degree at Prague University.

Breinl worked at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He was an exceptional medical scientist who had received awards for his contribution to tropical medicine, particularly for his work with Harold Wolferstan Thomas, on a cure for sleeping sickness. The treatment he helped develop, using an organic arsenical "atoxyl", later became a corner stone in the early development of chemotherapy.

In 1908, responding to the concerns of the medical profession and the community, the Australian Government decided to establish an institute in North Queensland, although some concern was expressed about the distance of the research centre from southern medical schools. While generally the medical profession hoped that the inaugural doctor would be Australian, Anton Breinl was appointed and arrived in Townsville on 1 January 1910.

Breinl and his laboratory assistant Fielding, were the only members of the new Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine. They were housed in a three-room building which had been a wardsman's quarters in the grounds of Townsville Hospital. Part of the work included field work collecting native fauna for examination in the laboratory, examining data for medical practitioners and collection of data.

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