= Jacques Miller
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Jacques Miller established a central role of the <thymus> in the development of <immunity (medical)>. In his firsthand account, removing the <thymus> from newborn mice led to a deficiency of <lymphocytes> and failure to reject <skin grafts>. The contrast with removal in adult mice helped reveal a developmental function that adult experiments had obscured.<Professor Jacques Miller, pathologist in Conversations with Australian scientists>[Why did the mice waste away? An unexpected finding: lymphocyte deficiency, graft acceptance and the 1961 report.]{ref}
A further comparison separated two consequences of the intervention. In conditions excluding environmental <microorganisms>, the mice remained healthy but still failed to reject <skin grafts>. Thus wasting illness and impaired <immune responses> were not interchangeable observations: illness depended on exposure, while the graft test still revealed the immune defect. Miller's experiments helped replace the idea of the <thymus> as a largely inactive organ with a developmental explanation for immunological competence.<Professor Jacques Miller, pathologist in Conversations with Australian scientists>[So why did the mice waste away?: germ-free comparison.]{ref}
\Image[https://science.org.au/sites/default/files/Conversation%20with%20scientist/image/Body%20content%20image/professor_jacques_miller-1.jpg]
{title=<Jacques Miller>}
{description=Portrait labelled on the Australian Academy of Science's interview with <Jacques Miller>, conducted by <Frank Fenner> in 1999.}
{height=300}
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