MICROBIOLOGIST

[ Sir Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine, Russian bacteriologist described by Lister as a saviour of humanity. ] Two Autograph Letters Signed and an Autograph Card Signed (all 'W. M. Haffkine') [ to editor ], regarding his entry in Men of the Times.

Author: 
Sir Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine [ born Vladimir Aaronovich Chavkin ] (1860-1930), Russian bacteriologist described by Joseph Lister as a saviour of humanity
Publication details: 
All on letterheads of the Buckingham Palace Hotel [ London ]. All dating from July 1899.
£450.00

A Ukrainian Jew, Haffkine found his early career obstructed by his refusal to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. He emigrated and worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he developed an anti-cholera vaccine that he tried out successfully in India. He is recognized as the first microbiologist to develop and use vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. He tested the vaccines on himself. The three items in good conditon, lightly aged. ONE: ALS. 2pp., 12mo. He has been 'away from town', but now hopes to send 'a note on my work' within the week. 'It wd.

Autograph Letter Signed ('A. C. Egerton | V.U.I.P.!') from the chemist A. C. Egerton to Thomas Lloyd Humberstone, giving his reasons for passing him over in an election in favour of the microbiologist Frederick William Twort.

Author: 
Professor Sir Alfred Charles Glyn Egerton [A. C. Egerton] (1886-1959), chemist, of Imperial College, London [Frederick William Twort (1877-1950); Thomas Lloyd Humberstone (1876-1957), educationist]
Publication details: 
22 October 1947; on letterhead of Imperial College of Science and Technology, Prince Consort Road, London.
£45.00

12mo, 2 pp. 22 lines. Text clear and complete. Begins by explaining his reasons for not supporting Humberstone in an unspecified election. Humberstone has 'valiantly' supported 'the cause for Research at the Universities', and his 'knowledge of University affairs' is 'profound', but 'after a time new minds have to have their turn!' He remembers a paper of Twort's 'on airborn infection problems' which interested him 'much'. 'I know he was an original investigator, but somehow he seems to have got across people in his line of work. I don't propose to go in for Biological Warfare!

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