Waldemar+Mordecai+Wolff+Haffkine

 ** Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkin ** ( 15 March 1860 - October 1930):

Haffkine was a Russian Jewish bacteriologist. Although he is seen and regarded very positively by the modern medical community, his career was never described and appreciated to its true nature in his home nation, as he refused to convert to Russian Orthodoxy because he would not abandon his Jewish beliefs and faith. Having had enough of religious intolerance, Haffkine emigrated to Paris, where he would work at the famous Pasteur Institute in Paris. It did not take long for his career to take off, as he was one of the first to develop an effective anti-cholera vaccine. After development, Haffkine went to India to test the true effectiveness of his vaccine, which dramatically reduced the infections of cholera. Haffkine also did the same, that is, developed a vaccine, to help deter the spread and virility of the bubonic plague. He first, rather boldly, tested any of his newly developed vaccines on himself; upon initial success, he would then travel around to vaccinate local populations against these two diseases. In some medical circles, Haffkine has been dubbed “a saviour of humanity”. Later, in October 1896, an epidemic of bubonic plague struck Bombay, whose government sought the expertise of Haffkine to help fight and curb the spread of the disease. Upon arrival in Bombay, Haffkine received a makeshift lab in a hallway of Grant Medical College, where he, somewhat miraculously, was able to create a vaccine for the plague. After three months of gruelling worth and perseverance, the initial run of the vaccine was prepared for human trials on January 10, 1897, after having tested it upon himself first of course. The vaccine relied on a very small amount of the bacteria, which worked to produce an immune reaction. These encouraging results were shared with the national authorities, which then ordered the testing on volunteers at the Byculla jail. These volunteers were each inoculated and, out of rather large groups, only seven of the inmates failed to survive the epidemics. Although it was successfully in saving many people from the plague itself, the Haffkine formulation of the vaccine had some rather off-putting side effects, and still did not quite provide complete protection. However, it has been estimated that his vaccines cut the predicted death toll of the plague by at least 25%, with estimates placing it as high as 50%. Although Haffkine's successes deterring the spread of ongoing epidemics were indisputable, he was not able to convince all medical officials to convert to his way of performing medicine. Indeed, some officials still insisted on old methods based on sanitarianism; that is, washing houses with a fire hose laced with lime or lemon or by herding affected and suspected persons into camps and hospitals, all the while putting incredible restrictions on civilian travel. However, these methods proved less and less affective, and, by the turn of the century, the number of inoculees in India alone reached four million. After these developments and realizations within the medical community, Haffkine quickly rose to the forefront of the medical community. He was ultimately promoted to the role of Director of the Plague Laboratory in Bombay, which now bares his name: the Haffkine Institute. [1]

 [1] " [|Haffkine, Waldemar Mordecai Wolfe.] " __Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography__. 2008. //Encyclopedia.com.// 15 Apr. 2011