Albert Calmette

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Albert Calmette
antivenin
Scientific career
FieldsBacteriology
InstitutionsPasteur Institute

Léon Charles Albert Calmette

venom
, the Calmette's serum.

Early career

Calmette was born in

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, where he arrived in 1887. Afterwards, he served in West Africa, in Gabon and French Congo, where he researched malaria, sleeping sickness and pellagra
.

Association with Pasteur

Upon his return to France in 1890, Calmette met

fermentation of opium and rice
.

In 1894, he came back to France again and develop the first antivenoms for snake bites using immune sera from vaccinated horses (Calmette's serum). Work in this field was later taken up by Brazilian physician Vital Brazil, in São Paulo at the Instituto Butantan, who developed several other antivenoms against snakes, scorpions and spiders.[4]

He also took part in the development in the first immune serum against the

Oporto in 1899.[4]

Institute leadership

In 1895, Roux entrusted him with the directorship of the Institute's branch at

Institut Pasteur de Lille), where he was to remain for the next 25 years. In 1901, he founded the first antituberculosis dispensary at Lille, and named it after Emile Roux.[4]
In 1904, he founded the "Ligue du Nord contre la Tuberculose" (Northern Antituberculosis League), which still exists today.

In 1909, he helped to establish the Institute branch in Algiers (Algeria). In 1918, he accepted the post of assistant director of the Institute in Paris; the following year he was made a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.[4]

Research on tuberculosis

Albert Calmette in 1923

Calmette's main scientific work, which was to bring him worldwide fame and his name permanently attached to the history of

immunity would develop in response to attenuated bovine bacilli injected in animals. This preparation received the name of its two discoverers (Bacillum Calmette-Guérin, or BCG, for short). Attenuation was achieved by cultivating them in a bile-containing substrate, based on idea given by a Norwegian researcher, Kristian Feyer Andvord (1855–1934).[5] From 1908 to 1921, Guérin and Calmette strived to produce less and less virulent strains of the bacillus, by transferring them to successive cultures. Finally, in 1921, they used BCG to successfully vaccinate newborn infants in the Hôpital de la Charité
in Paris.

The vaccination program, however, suffered a serious setback when 72 vaccinated children developed tuberculosis in 1930, in Lübeck, Germany, due to a contamination of some batches in Germany. Mass vaccination of children was reinstated in many countries after 1932, when new and safer production techniques were implemented. Notwithstanding, Calmette was deeply shaken by the event, dying one year later, in Paris.[4]

Impact on industrial brewing

Calmette helped develop the amylolytic process which was used in industrial brewing.[6]

Personal life

He was the brother of Gaston Calmette (1858–1914), the editor of Le Figaro who was shot and killed in 1914 by Henriette Caillaux.[4] Mme Caillaux was acquitted of murder on the grounds that she had committed a crime of passion.

Legacy

Calmette Bridge
Busts of Calmette and Pasteur inside the Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City

Today, his name is one of the few remaining French names in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (others being

Pasteur
). A bridge completed in 2009 is also named "Calmette" connecting district 1 to district 4, also connected to the exit of the new Thu Thiem tunnel connecting the district 1 to the future residential Thu Thiem area in district 2.[7] In Cambodia, a major hospital was named after him, Calmette Hospital.[8]

References

  1. ISSN 1479-571X
    .
  2. PMID 22815009
    .
  3. PMID 10400286
    .
  4. ^
    PMID 6359561
    .
  5. ISBN 978-84-17403-17-1
    .
  6. ISSN 0002-8762
    .
  7. ^ Luan, Kinh (22 January 2009). "Calmette Bridge completed". Saigon Times Daily. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  8. ^ "Calmette Hospital". Archived from the original on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.

Bibliography

External links
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