Waldemar Haffkine 1311462 222894385 2008-07-01T17:05:11Z Thijs!bot 1392310 robot Adding: [[uk:Хавкін Володимир Аронович]] {{Refimprove|date=April 2008}} <!-- Image with questionable fair-use claim removed: [[Image:Haffkine stamp india.jpg|right|thumb|[[India]]n postage stamp dedicated to W.M. Haffkine]] --> {{Infobox Scientist |name =Waldemar Haffkine |box_width = |image =Replace_this_image_male.svg |image_width = |caption = |birth_date =[[March 15]], [[1860]] |birth_place =[[Odessa]], [[Ukraine]] |death_date = [[October 26]], [[1930]] |death_place = [[Lausanne]], [[Switzerland]] |residence = |citizenship = |nationality = |ethnicity = |field =[[bacteriology]] |work_institutions = |alma_mater = |doctoral_advisor = |doctoral_students = |known_for = [[vaccine]]s against [[cholera]] and [[bubonic plague]] |author_abbrev_bot = |author_abbrev_zoo = |influences = |influenced = |prizes = |footnotes = |signature = }} '''Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine''' ([[March 15]], [[1860]], [[Odessa]], [[Ukraine]] - [[October 26]], [[1930]], [[Lausanne]], [[Switzerland]]) was a [[bacteriologist]] who mainly worked in [[India]]. He was the first [[microbiologist]] who developed and used [[vaccine]]s against [[cholera]] and [[bubonic plague]]. He tested the vaccines on himself. [[Lord]] [[Joseph Lister]] named him "a savior of humanity". ==Early years== Born '''Vladimir Aaronovich Havkin''' ({{lang-ru|Владимир Ааронович Хавкин}}), the fourth of five children in a family of a Jewish schoolmaster in [[Odessa]], [[Russian Empire]] (now [[Ukraine]]), he received his education in Odessa, [[Berdyansk]] and [[Saint Petersburg|St. Petersburg]]. For a short time, young Haffkine was a member of [[Narodnaya Volya]], but after the group turned to [[terrorism]] against public officials, he broke up with the revolutionary movement. He was also a member of the ''Jewish League for Self-Defense''. Haffkine was injured while defending a Jewish home during a [[pogrom]]. As a result of this action he was arrested but later released due to the intervention of [[Ilya Mechnikov]]. Haffkine continued his studies with famous biologist [[Ilya Mechnikov]], but after the assassination of [[Tsar]] [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]], the government increasingly cracked down on people it considered suspicious, including [[intelligentsia]]. Mechnikov left the country for [[Pasteur Institute]] in [[Paris]]. In 1888, Haffkine was allowed to emigrate to [[Switzerland]] and began his work at the [[University of Geneva]]. In 1889 he joined Mechnikov and [[Louis Pasteur]] in Paris. ==Anti-cholera vaccine== At the time, one of the five great cholera [[pandemic]]s of the nineteenth 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]]. Haffkine focused his research on developing cholera vaccine and produced an attenuated form of the [[bacterium]]. Risking his own life, on [[July 18]], [[1892]], Haffkine performed the first human test on himself and reported his findings on [[July 30]] to the [[Linnean Society of London|Biological Society]]. Even though his discovery caused enthusiastic stir in the press, it was not widely accepted by his senior colleagues, including both Mechnikov and Pasteur, nor by European official medical establishment in [[France]], [[Germany]] and [[Russia]]. The scientist decided to move to [[India]] where hundreds of thousands died from ongoing epidemics. At first, he was met with deep suspicion and survived an [[assassin]]ation attempt by [[Islamism|Islamic extremists]] but during the first year there (1893), he managed to vaccinate about 25,000 volunteers, most of whom survived. After contracting [[malaria]], Haffkine had to return to France. In his August 1895 report to [[Royal College of Physicians]] in [[London]] about the results of his Indian expedition, Haffkine dedicated his successes to Pasteur, who recently died. In March 1896, against his doctor's advice, Haffkine returned to India and performed 30,000 vaccinations in seven months. ==Anti-plague vaccine== In October 1896, an epidemic of bubonic plague struck [[Bombay]] (now [[Mumbai]]) and the government asked Haffkine to help. He embarked upon the development of a vaccine in a makeshift laboratory in a corridor of [[Grant Medical College]]. In three months of persistent work (one of his assistants experienced a [[nervous breakdown]], two others quit), a form for human trials was ready and on [[January 10]], [[1897]] Haffkine tested it on himself. After these results were announced to the authorities, volunteers at the Byculla jail were inoculated and survived the epidemics, while seven inmates of the control group died. Haffkine's successes in fighting the ongoing epidemics were undisputable, but some officials still insisted on old methods based on [[sanitation|sanitarianism]]: washing homes by [[firehose]] with [[Calcium oxide|lime]], herding affected and suspected persons into camps and hospitals, and restricting travel. Even though the official Russia was still unsympathetic to his research, Haffkine's Russian colleagues doctors V.K. Vysokovich and [[Danylo Zabolotny|D.K. Zabolotny]] visited him in Bombay. During the 1898 cholera outbreak in the Russian Empire, the vaccine called "лимфа Хавкина" ("limfa Havkina", ''Havkin's [[lymph]]'') saved thousands of lives across the empire. By the turn of the century, the number of inoculees in India alone reached four million and doctor Haffkine was appointed the Director of the Plague Laboratory in Bombay (now called [[Haffkine Institute]]). ==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. ==Little Dreyfus affair== In 1902, nineteen [[Punjab region|Punjab]]i villagers (inoculated from a single bottle of vaccine) died of [[tetanus]]. An inquiry commission indicted Haffkine, and he was relieved of his position and returned to England. The report was unofficially known as "Little [[Dreyfus affair]]", as a reminder of Haffkine's Jewish background and religion. The [[Lister Institute]] reinvestigated the claim and overruled the verdict: it was discovered that an assistant used a dirty bottle cap without [[sterilization (microbiology)|sterilizing]] it. In July 1907, a letter published in ''[[The Times]]'' called the case against Haffkine "distinctly disproven". It was signed by [[Ronald Ross]] ([[Nobel Prize|Nobel]] laureate, malaria researcher), [[R.F.C. Leith]] (the founder of [[Birmingham University]] Institute of Pathology)<ref>[http://www.pathology.bham.ac.uk/history.shtml History<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>, William R. Smith (President of the Council of the [[Royal Institute of Public Health]]), and [[Simon Flexner]] (Director of Laboratories at [[New York]] [[Rockefeller Institute]]), among other medical dignitaries. This led to Haffkine's acquittal. ==Late years== Since Haffkine's post in Bombay was already occupied, he moved to [[Calcutta]] and worked there until his retirement in 1914. Professor Haffkine returned to France and later moved to [[Lausanne]], where he spent the last years of his life. During his brief visit to the [[Soviet Union]] in 1927, he found drastic changes in the country of his birth. In his later years, Haffkine returned to [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox]] Jewish practice. In 1916, he wrote ''A Plea for Orthodoxy''. In this article Haffkine advocated traditional religious observance and decried the lack of such observance among "enlightened" Jews. In 1929 he established the Haffkine Foundation to foster Jewish education in [[Eastern Europe]]. 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 1960s. ==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). ==References== <references /> ==External links== * [http://haffkineinstitute.org/ Haffkine Research Institute] * [http://www.vaccinehaffkine.com/ Haffkine Bio Pharma Corp] * [http://www.asm.org/ASM/files/CCLIBRARYFILES/FILENAME/0000000248/530787p366.pdf Waldemar Haffkine: Pioneer of Cholera vaccine] at [[American Society for Microbiology]] * [http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-520363,prtpage-1.cms Nancy Hafkin, great-granddaughter of W.M. Haffkin, visits the Haffkine institute] * [http://www.fda.gov/cber/minutes/plague101304t.pdf Plague Vaccine Design] at [[Food and Drug Administration]] (FDA) * [http://www.jewishgen.org/Ukraine/Photo_Album/Stamps/haffkine.htm Biography] at Jewishgen * {{ru icon}} [http://www.odessaglobe.com/russian/people/khavkin.htm Biography] at OdessaGlobe * {{ru icon}} [http://www.sem40.ru/ourpeople/destiny/16218/ Biography] at sem40.com {{Vaccines}} [[Category:Russian microbiologists|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Immunologists|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Jewish Russian and Soviet history|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:People from Kolkata|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Indian doctors|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Ukrainian scientists|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:People from Odessa|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Jewish scientists|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:1860 births|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:1930 deaths|Haffkine, Waldemar]] [[Category:Russian inventors|Haffkine]] [[Category:Jewish inventors|Haffkine]] [[de:Waldemar Haffkine]] [[fr:Waldemar Haffkine]] [[he:מרדכי זאב חבקין]] [[ru:Хавкин, Владимир Аронович]] [[uk:Хавкін Володимир Аронович]]