E. S. ANDERSON was director of the Enteric Reference Laboratory of what was then the Central Public Health Laboratory in Colindale, North London, now incorporated into the Health Protection Agency. Originally a general practitioner, Anderson became a medical scientist who pioneered the study of resistance to antibiotics. He first came across antibiotics as an army doctor when they were introduced into medicine during the Second World War and then subsequently, as a bacteriologist, he studied their effect on the development and spread of resistance.

He predicted the problems that medicine would face as resistance became more prominent and lived to an age when his predictions have become a horrifying reality. Anderson was a brilliant scientist ahead of his time. His research is still highly regarded and many of his publications are considered classic examples of biomedical research: particularly his work on bacterial plasmids and their role in spreading resistance. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1968 and was appointed CBE in 1976.

Ephraim Saul Anderson, known by all as Andy, was born in Newcastle in 1911 to a family that had recently emigrated from Eastern Europe. He was brilliant at school and, despite the family’s modest circumstances, his mother encouraged him to go to medical school in Newcastle — though he was always quick to point out that the medical school was actually part of Durham University.

After qualifying, he practised as a GP until the war when he served with the RAMC, mainly in the Middle East working on tracing typhoid carriers. This exposure to basic epidemiology encouraged him to specialise in bacteriology after the war. After some temporary appointments, he went to the Enteric Reference Laboratory at the recently inaugurated Central Public Health Laboratory under the direction of Dr Arthur Felix in 1947. The relationship with Felix was not an easy one for Anderson and the work focused mainly on tracing the spread of the typhoid bacillus during outbreaks and the role of typhoid vaccines.

Anderson became deputy director in 1952 and took over as director after Felix retired in 1954; this heralded a golden age for his research. He continued studying the epidemiology of typhoid outbreaks, being consulted for the one at Zermatt in 1963 where he showed that the cause was contamination of the water supply from sewage.

He came to public prominence in this country for his notable work in tracing the source of the typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen in 1964 when he demonstrated that it had originated in a can of South American corned beef that had been cooled, after sterilisation, by being sprayed with pressurised untreated water from the Rio Plata. The bacillus had entered through a small hole in the can, and when it was sold in slices from a butcher’s shop in Aberdeen, many customers became infected and subsequently died. This remarkable detective work was also used as a retrospective explanation for the Oswestry outbreak some 16 years earlier.

In 1963 Watanabe reported the results of other Japanese workers that antibiotic resistance genes could be carried on plasmids, DNA that is independent from the bacterial chromosome, and could be transferred from one bacterium to another. This fired Anderson’s curiosity, for it meant that antibiotic resistance “learnt” by one species could be transferred to another in a different location. It started a long and productive examination of antibiotic resistance. He mapped the emergence of antibiotic resistance in the typhoid bacillus, showing how resistance to chloramphenicol, the then antibiotic of choice for typhoid fever, emerged in the outbreak in Mexico in 1968.

Typhoid outbreaks around the world continued and Anderson and his group were invariably called upon to investigate them. They showed that resistance to chloramphenicol was soon joined by resistance to other “drugs of choice” for treating typhoid, including ampicillin and trimethoprim. Anderson showed that resistance to these antibiotics was often carried by the same plasmid, the spread of which he demonstrated was responsible for increase in antibiotic resistance.

He was fascinated by the new science of molecular biology, the study of the structure of DNA, and was one of the first to introduce it into his study of resistance. In many of his publications he outlined techniques that scientists still use today even though they may not realise that he devised them more than 30 years ago.

In the 1960s Anderson became concerned about the use of antibiotics in animals, as he considered this to be a threat to human medicine. In particular, he was worried about the use of growth promoters, antibiotics added to animal feed to improve weight gain. He expressed his concerns in the journal Nature and this led to the formation of the Swann Committee in 1969, which recommended that antibiotics given for therapy should not be used for growth promotion. Even so, Anderson was still alarmed about the continued use of growth promoters and their potential to cause resistance in bacteria responsible for human infections.

He expressed his views forcibly to legislators and usually it went unheeded. However, this year the European Union has finally banned all use of antibiotic growth promoters, some 35 years after Anderson’s initial protests.

He had also shown that the introduction of individual antibiotics to treat calves led to a rapid rise in resistant Salmonella typhimurium and was soon followed by a rise of the same resistant bacterium for human infection, a clear demonstration of antibiotic usage in animals leading to resistance problems in human bacteria. In another expert piece of detective work, Anderson demonstrated that the spread of resistant bacteria in calves throughout Britain could be traced to one dealer who was supplying much of the country with his infected animals. However, agitation did not bring about legislation, and the spread was only halted by the dealer’s death in a car accident.

Anderson’s opposition to the uncontrolled use of antibiotics generated some enmity, particularly among pharmaceutical companies who tried to disparage his claims. In one famous incident, when he gave the Marjory Stephenson lecture in 1975, he disputed the assertion of one pharmaceutical company which claimed that if doctors left their patients untreated a single bacterial cell could multiply to 10 trillion in 24 hours. Their drug, they insisted, would of course prevent this. He retorted, much to the amusement of the audience but not of the company representatives in the front row, that if this were true then the doctor would have great difficulty in finding the patient within this huge mass of bacteria.

Anderson had a sharp wit with a mischievous and entertaining sense of humour, which he could use to great effect. However, he could appear to some to be aloof. He set himself extremely high standards in his research work and expected others to do the same, which could be mistaken for intolerance. However, for those who could “give as good as they got” he was very supportive. He was an honest, objective scientist who was not afraid of speaking his mind. He had prided himself that he had “never had a research grant” and thus was indebted to no one. This he considered an essential to work impartially with pharmaceuticals.

In what little spare time Anderson allowed himself, he was a passionate photographer and a lover of classical music, of which he had an extensive knowledge. He was the proud possessor of one of the earliest stereo sound systems, which took up most of his drawing room. His wide knowledge combined with his ready wit and sense of the absurd, and indeed his not inconsiderable charm, always made him a welcome guest at dinner parties.

Anderson married Carol Thompson in 1959 and, although the marriage ended in divorce, they remained friendly for the rest of his life. He is survived by his three sons.

E. S. Anderson, bacteriologist, FRS, CBE was born on October 28, 1911, in Newcastle. He died on March 14, 2006, aged 94.