“The journey we make here upon the earth is so short. Before we know where we are, we are at the end, and called upon to answer an inner voice: ‘Have you finished the work you had to do?’ Happy are they who can think, yes, they have finished their work.”
– Dr. Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine
Dr. Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine — a Ukrainian scientist was a bacteriologist who worked mainly in India and developed vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague.
The then Governor of Bombay invited Dr. Haffkine to Bombay in 1896 after an epidemic of plague broke out in the city. He found a place to work at the JJ Group of Hospitals where he developed a plague vaccine. On the 10th January 1897, Dr. Haffkine caused himself to be inoculated with 10 cc of a similar preparation, thus proving in his own person the harmlessness of the fluid. A form useful enough for human trials was ready by January 1897, and tested on volunteers at the Byculla jail the next month. Use of the vaccine in the field started immediately.
Recognition followed quickly. In 1898, the laboratory moved to Khushru lodge owned by Sir Sultan Shah, Aga Khan III, KCIE, head of the Khoja Mussulman community. This bungalow was fitted up at the Aga Khan’s expense for Haffkine’s use and about half the Khoja Mussulman community of Bombay (10,000–12,000 persons) received prophylactic inoculations under the auspices of His Highness the Aga Khan.
Source: Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing – B-C-ing-U!
Ismailimail 