Waldemar Haffkine
Waldemar Mordechai Haffkine | |
---|---|
Author abbrev. (botany) | Khawkine |
Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine
Haffkine was educated at the
He was appointed
In his final years Haffkine
Early years
Born into a Jewish family in Odessa, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire, the fourth of five children of Aaron and Rosalie (daughter of David-Aïsic Landsberg) in a family of a Jewish schoolmaster. Received his education at the gymnasium of
Young Haffkine was also a member of the Jewish League for Self-Defense in Odessa. Haffkine was injured while defending a Jewish home during a
Haffkine continued his studies from 1879 to 1883 with Mechnikov at
Protozoological studies
Haffkine began his scientific career as a
The
Anti-cholera vaccine
At the time, one of the five great cholera pandemics of the 19th century ravaged Asia and Europe. Even though Robert Koch discovered Vibrio cholerae in 1883, the medical science at that time did not consider it a sole cause of the disease. This view was supported by experiments by several biologists, notably Jaume Ferran i Clua in Spain.[citation needed]
Haffkine focused his research on developing a cholera vaccine, and produced an attenuated form of the
Haffkine considered India, where hundreds of thousands died from ongoing epidemics, as the best place to test his vaccine.[10] Through the influence of the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, who was in Paris as the British Ambassador, he was allowed to demonstrate his ideas in England. He proceeded to India in 1893 and established a laboratory at Byculla in 1896, which moved to Parel and was later called the Haffkine Institute. Haffkine worked on the plague and by 1902–03 half a million were inoculated but on 30 October 1902, 19 people died from tetanus out of 107 inoculated at Mulkowal. This "Mulkowal disaster" led to an enquiry.[12] He was briefly suspended but reappointed director of the Biological Laboratory in Calcutta.[citation needed] He retired in 1915 and suffering from malaria, had to return to France.
Anti-plague vaccine
"Unlike tetanus or diphtheria, which were quickly neutralized by effective vaccines by the 1920s, the immunological aspects of bubonic plague proved to be much more daunting."
Despite Haffkine's successes, some officials still primarily insisted on methods based on sanitarianism: washing homes by fire hose with lime, herding affected and suspected persons into camps and hospitals, and restricting travel.[citation needed]
Even though official Russia was still unsympathetic to his research, [
By the turn of the 20th century, the number of inoculees in India alone reached four million and Haffkine was appointed the Director of the Plague Laboratory in Bombay (now called Haffkine Institute).[10] In 1900, he was awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.[16]
Haffkine was the first to prepare a vaccine for human prophylaxis by killing virulent culture by heat at 60 °C.[17] The major limit of his vaccine was the lack of activity against pulmonary forms of plague.[18]
Connection with Zionism
In 1898, Haffkine approached Aga Khan III with an offer for Sultan Abdul Hamid II to resettle Jews in Palestine, then a province of the Ottoman Empire: the effort "could be progressively undertaken in the Holy Land", "the land would be obtained by purchase from the Sultan's subjects", "the capital was to be provided by wealthier members of the Jewish community", but the plan was rejected.[citation needed]
Little Dreyfus affair
In March 1902, nineteen Indian villagers from Mulkowal in Punjab (inoculated from a single bottle of vaccine) died of tetanus, whilst the other 88 villagers were well. Evidence pointed to the contamination of one bottle - 53N. The procedure for sterilisation at the Parel lab had been changed from carbolic acid to sterilisation using heating, a process that had been used at the Pasteur Institute safely for two years but was new in the British Empire. The 1903 commission from the Indian government concluded this was the source of the contamination.[1]
An inquiry commission indicted Haffkine, and he was relieved of his position and returned to England. The report was unofficially known as the "Little Dreyfus affair", as a reminder of Haffkine's Jewish background and religion. [citation needed]
The
In July 1907, a letter published in The Times called the case against Haffkine "distinctly disproven". It was signed by Ronald Ross, William R. Smith, and Simon Flexner, among other medical dignitaries. This led to Haffkine's acquittal.
Late years
Since Haffkine's post in
Haffkine received numerous honors and awards. In 1925, the Plague Laboratory in Bombay was renamed the Haffkine Institute. In commemoration of the centennial of his birth, Haffkine Park was planted in Israel in the 1960s.
Orthodox Judaism
In a biography of him, Nobelist
A brotherhood built up of racial ties, long tradition, common suffering, faith and hope, is a union ready-made, differing from artificial unions in that the bonds existing between the members contain an added promise of duration and utility. Such a union takes many centuries to form and is a power for good, the neglect or disuse of which is as much an injury to humanity as the removal of an important limb is to the individual... no law of nature operates with more fatality and precision than the law according to which those communities survive in the strife for existence that conform the nearest to the Jewish teachings on the relation of man to his Creator; on the ordering of time for work and rest; on the formation of families and the duties of husband and wife, parents and children; on the paramount obligations of truthfulness and justice between neighbor and neighbor and to the stranger within the gates.
— Haffkine (1916)[20]
In 1929, he established the Haffkine Foundation to foster Jewish education in Eastern Europe. Haffkine was also respectful of other religions, and "he considered it of the utmost importance to promote the study of the Bible."[21]
In 1982, the
References
- ^ a b Gunter, Joel; Pandey, Vikas (11 December 2020). "Waldemar Haffkine: The vaccine pioneer the world forgot". BBC News. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
- ^ JHALA, H. I. "W. M. W. Haffkine, Bacteriologist—A Great Savior of Mankind" (PDF). Indian Journal of History of Science.
- ^ London Jewish Chronicle. 1 June 2012. p. 8
- ISBN 978-1-4711-6991-5.
- ^ S2CID 220029389.
- ^ Igor Lyman, Victoria Konstantinova. The Ukrainian South as Viewed by Consuls of the British Empire (Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Centuries) Volume 1: British Consuls in the Port City of Berdyansk (Kyiv, 2018), pp. 117–18, 316–17
- ^ S2CID 42075270.
- ^ .
- S2CID 42075270.
- ^ a b c Rats, fleas and men; Anthony Daniels on how the secret of bubonic plague was found. by Anthony Daniels. Sunday Telegraph (London). p. 14. 25 August 2002.
- ^ ISBN 9783540926771. pp. 164–65
- S2CID 4032542.
- ^ ISSN 1045-6007. 22 September 2002.
- ^ Haffkine Institute- For Training, Research and Testing haffkineinstitute.org, accessed 11 December 2020
- ^ ISSN 0899-8280. 1 July 2004.
- PMID 89932.
- ^ Practical bacteriology, microbiology and serum therapy (medical and veterinary) on Open Library at the Internet Archive, p. 468
- ^ Haffkine's plague vaccine on Open Library at the Internet Archive
- ^ Douillet, Claudine. "Livre juif: Waldemar Mordekhai Haffkine Biographie intellectuelle | LeMonde.co.il". Retrieved 13 December 2016.
- ^ A Plea for Orthodoxy; reprinted from The Menorah Journal Méhul, Etienne Nicolas. Joseph and his brethren: opera in three acts ([19?]). London: Breitkopf & Härtel, p. 13
- Waksman, Selman Abraham. 1964. The brilliant and tragic life of W.M.W. Haffkine, bacteriologist. Rutgers University Press. pp. 75, 77
- ^ Schneersohn, Y.Y. (1982) IGROIS KOIDESH (Vol. II). Brooklyn: Kehot Publication Society.
Sources
- Edinger, Henry. "The Lonely Odyssey of W.M.W. Haffkine", In Jewish Life Volume 41, No. 2 (Spring 1974).
- Waksman, Selman A. The Brilliant and Tragic Life of W.M.W. Haffkine: Bacteriologist, Rutgers University Press (1964).
- Hanhart, Joel. Lausanne University, Faculté de biologie et médecine. Haffkine, une esquisse: biographie intellectuelle et analytique de Waldemar Mordekhaï Haffkine 2013
- Prix de thèse 2014 – Société des Etudes Juives Societe des Etudes Juives societedesetudesjuives.org, accessed 11 December 2020
- Lutzker, Edythe (1970–1980). "Haffkine, Waldemar Mordecai Wolfe". ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
- Hanhart, Joel. "Waldemar Mordekhaï Haffkine (1860–1930)". Biographie intellectuelle, Éditions Honoré Champion (2016), ISBN 978-2-7453-3074-1.
- Hanhart, Joel. "Un illustre inconnu. Une biographie du docteur" Waldemar Mordekhaï Haffkine, Éditions Lichma (2017), ISBN 978-2-912553-84-3.
- Markish, David. Mahatma. The Savior Mankind Never Knew (Translated by Marian Schwartz[1]). Mahatma Haffkine Foundation,[2] Aleksandr Duel, New-York, 2019.
Notes
External links
- Works by or about Waldemar Haffkine at Internet Archive
- Haffkine Research Institute
- Waldemar Haffkine: Pioneer of Cholera vaccine at American Society for Microbiology
- Plague Vaccine Design at Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Biography at Jewishgen
- The Holy Scientist at windsofchange.net
- Great scientist, great Jew, Rabbi M. Friedman at cjnews.com
- The Last Resort: The Man Who Saved the World from Two Pandemics, Udi Edery at the National library of Israel
- Waldemar Haffkine: The vaccine pioneer the world forgot, Joel Gunter and Vikas Pandey at the BBC.Com