In 1896 the bubonic plague broke out in Bombay. The Indian government asked Waldemar M. Haffkine to investigate the cause of the plague and to attempt to develop a vaccine against it. Haffkine was a Russian Jewish bacteriologist, who several years earlier had developed a vaccine against cholera and had inoculated a large number of people in various parts of India.
In October Haffkine established a laboratory in Bombay. He worked twelve to fourteen hours a day and also lectured to medical groups on problems related to the plague. In December the vaccine was ready. Haffkine at first inoculated animals. On January 10, 1897 he tested the vaccine on himself. After the vaccine proved successful many asked to be immunized. The mass manufacture of the vaccine was begun and the laboratory had to move to larger quarters. The vaccine was not only used in India but exported to other countries. With the steady growth of the demand, still larger quarters were required by the laboratory. In August 1899, Lord Sandhurst, the Governnor of Bombay, opened in a building which formerly served as the residence of the governors, the “Plague Research Laboratory.” Haffkine who was then on a short visit to England was appointed its director.
Until the middle of 1902, the laboratory produced more than three million doses of the plague vaccine which were distributed in India and other countries. At that time it had a staff of 53. In the following year it extended its activities. It undertook the investigation of other infectuous diseases. In 1906 it was renamed the Bombay Bacteriolgoical Laboratory,” and in 1925, more than twenty years after Haffkine had ceased to be its director, it was named the Haffkine Institute in his honor.
Today the Haffkine Instiitute is a world famous medical research center. It comprises many departments, manufactured drugs,vitamins and vaccines, and trains medical research workers. It has the oldest medical library in India with about 18,000 volumes and two hundred periodicals in Indian foreign languages, 240 scientists are working at the Institute. They are assisted by a staff of about 2000.
The original building still serves as the headquarters of the Institute. Smaller structures were built near it to accommodate various departments and laboratories.
Can one visit Bombay and not go to see this great institute which was founded by our coreligionist Wlademar Mordecai Haffkine?
Haffkine was not only a brilliant scientist, he was also a great and devoted Jew. He was an observant Jew and an enthusiastic adherent of the Hovevei Zion. All his life the physical and spiritual welfare of his brethren were uppermost in his mind.
On one of the walls near the main lobby is a large picture showing Haffkine administering an inoculation. Nearby is a bust of Haffkine and a little further away a bust of Louis Pasteur. Between the two, but in a more forward position, is a bust of Major General Dr. S.S. Sokhey, who was for many years the director of the institute.
An employee gave us a guided tour though the library and the various departments and their laboratories and explained some of the products to us. We also talked to Dr. B. B. Gaitonde, the present director of the institute.
Dr. Gaitonde showed us a picture album he had received recently from Edyeth Lutzker. Mrs. Lutzker is a Jewish medical historian from New York. In recent years she has devoted herself to acquainting wider circles with the life and achievements of Dr. Haffkine. “We all are the beneficiaries of Haffkine’s discoveries and all of us should know more about him,” Mrs. Lutzker says. She has amassed much material about Haffkine and is writing a large book about him. In 1967 she organized the Waldemar Haffkine International Memorial Committee of which she is vice president. At the initiative of the Committee, in 1972 a plaque was unveiled at the Pasteur Institiute in Paris commemorating the 80th anniversary of Haffkiene’s discovery there of the first effective anti-cholera vaccine. The ceremony was attended by two Nobel Laureats: Jacque Monod, the director of the Pasteur Institute and Rene Cassin, the famous French-Jewish jurist. The album which Mrs. Lutzker sent to the Haffkine institute contained photographs of the ceremony.
“Next year on the 1oth of Augsut 1974, the Institute will complete seventy-five years of its existence.” Dr. Gaitonde told us.
“The platinum jubilee will be celebrated for a full year. The celebrations will be inaugurated in a few days, on the 10th of August and will reach their high point next January on the anniversary of the day on which Haffkine risked his life by testing on himself the vaccine he had invented against the plague. Let me invite you to the inaugural meeting. It wll take place next Friday in this building. If you are still in Bombay — please come.”
The director handed us a printed invitation.
It happened that we were still in the city and were able to attend. We arrived a little late and had to make our way through the crowded hall to the reserved section. The speakers were Dr. B. B. Gaitonde, Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, the Minister of Public Health and Urban Debelopment of Bombay State and R. K. Khadikar ,the Minister of Health and Family Planning of the Government of India.
All speakers dwelt on the personality and achievements of Haffkine, on the institute he had founded and on its development and plans.
“It was love for his fellow men, not merely intellectual curiosity which guided Haffkine in his work and research. He should serve as a model and inspiration of all of us,” India’s Minister of Health and Family Planning delcared
It was announced that Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India had promised, if she will be free at that time, to participate in the January celebration.
A photograph of Haffkine was upon the wall behind the speaker’s table. His eyes seemd to look at the assembly. There were people of India’s many races and religions. Possibly, I thought to myself, my wife, my youngest son and I were the only Jews in the large crowd which paid homage to a Jewish scientist.
My thoughts began to wander. The life story of Haffkine passed before my mind’s eye.
The Jewish Press, Friday, December 14, 1973 P. 37