Robert Kissling

Robert Emmons Kissling, DVM

May 30, 1923 - November 13, 2013

Chapel Hill

Robert Emmons Kissling passed away November 13, 2013 after a long period of declining health. He was 90.

Dr. Kissling, known to all as Bob, was born on May 30, 1923 in Toledo, Ohio, as the second of Lehr and Elsie Kissling's four children. Bob was raised during the Great Depression, and this helped form his strong sense of integrity, financial prudence, and self-reliance. One of Bob's earliest memories was watching the milk-wagon draft horse and milkman work as a team, the unsupervised horse advancing the wagon while the milkman made the deliveries to each doorstep. Bob made up his mind that he wanted to work with horses. He attended Otterbein College then Ohio State University, earning his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Master of Science degrees; he also did graduate work in veterinary pathology at the University of California at Davis. The U.S. Army sponsored his time at Ohio State in Columbus under the aegis of the Army Specialized Training Program during World War II. After joining the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, Bob worked at the Rockefeller Rabies Lab in Montgomery, Alabama. Bob and lab technician Martha Eidson developed a tissue-culture rabies vaccine, eliminating the unpredictable nature of nerve-cell-derived rabies vaccines which would either prevent the disease or cause a violent immune reaction. Bob and Martha married and later, with three small children in tow, accepted a one year assignment in Hawaii. In 1960 the Public Health Service assigned Bob to the Communicable Disease Center (now called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, Georgia. Bob, Martha, and the children settled in northeast Atlanta, where they were to live until Bob's retirement from the CDC in 1973. While at CDC, Bob researched viral diseases transmitted from animals to humans, including rabies and equine encephalitis. He helped develop a fluorescent antibody test that was the first fully accurate test for identifying rabies. He eventually headed the virology section at CDC, and was instrumental in investigating several lethal outbreaks such as Marburg virus and Lassa fever. Upon retirement, Bob and Martha reclaimed a neglected 40-acre farm near Waleska, Georgia and indulged in their passions for wildflowers, farming, and birdwatching. Martha passed away in 1999. Bob, in declining health, moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. There he lived out his years, as a devoted grandfather and great-grandfather to his youngest daughter's offspring. Bob is survived by his children Grace, Stephen (Elizabeth), and Catherine (Duane), granddaughter Sarah (Jason), great-granddaughters Adelaide and Emmeline, and his two granddogs and five grandcats. Private services will be held. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to UNC Hospice (www.unchealthcare.org/site/hospice/donations) or Aegis Home Care in Chapel Hill (www.aegishomecare.com).