He was the son of Daniel Francois du Toit (1846–1923), one of the founders of the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners, and owner of the first Afrikaans newspaper, Die Patriot.

He spent a further three years studying the tropical diseases affecting domestic animals, publishing Tropenkrankheiten der Haustiere in 1921 together with Paul Knuth.

His friendly nature and his brilliance as a speaker led to his inclusion on many boards and committees and did much to improve the role of science in South African and international affairs.

By the end of the 1940s two major curses of Africa had virtually been eliminated – East Coast fever, a tick-borne disease, and nagana, spread by the tsetse fly.

During World War II South Africa supplied horsesickness vaccines to the British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, and played a large part in the rinderpest inoculation campaign in Tanganyika, managing to stop its southward spread.