Dr. Rudolf Weigl developed the primary efficient vaccine typhus, and alongside the best way, saved 1000’s of Jews from execution.
Dr. Rudolf Weigl’s work on a vaccine for typhus throughout World Struggle II saved numerous lives, however his life-saving expertise stretched past the reaches of the illness.
Weigl was a Polish biologist, doctor and inventor finest recognized for creating the primary efficient vaccine towards typhus, a illness that spreads by physique lice and has been answerable for tens of millions of deaths all through historical past. Alongside the best way, he additionally supplied shelter for Jews vulnerable to execution in the course of the Holocaust.
To honor his achievement, Google will on Thursday dedicate its Doodle to the physician on his 138th birthday.
Born in 1883 within the modern-day Czech Republic, Weigl graduated with a level in organic sciences from Poland’s Lwów College in 1907 earlier than occurring to earn doctoral levels in zoology, comparative anatomy and histology — the examine of the microscopic anatomy of organic tissues.
As typhus ravaged Japanese Europe throughout World Struggle I, Weigl was decided to cease it. After the invention that typhus-infecting micro organism unfold by lice, Weigl grew contaminated lice in his lab and harvested their stomachs to be mashed right into a vaccine.
Weigl refined his approach over time and started large-scale testing of the vaccine in 1933. It was throughout this time he bought the illness himself however recovered.
Throughout the German occupation of Poland in World Struggle II, his work attracted the eye of the Nazis, who ordered Weigl to create a typhus vaccine manufacturing plant. To workers the plant, Weigl employed Jewish associates and colleagues, stopping them from being deported to Nazi demise camps.
Hundreds of doses of Weigl’s vaccine had been additionally smuggled into the Jewish ghettos, focus camps and Gestapo prisons. It is estimated Weigl saved about 5,000 Jews from the Nazis.
He was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize for his invention of the typhus vaccine however was blocked each instances because of the struggle and politics.
Weigl died in 1957 on the age of 74. Almost a half-century later, he was honored in 2003 by Israel as a Righteous Among the many Nations.
