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Ludwik Hirszfeld in the National Institute of Hygiene in 1920-1941

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Ludwik Hirszfeld in the National Institute of Hygiene in 1920-1941 PRZEGL EPIDEMIOL 2014; 68: 695 - 702 History of medicine Marta Gromulska LUDWIK HIRSZFELD IN THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HYGIENE IN 1920-1941 Department of Epidemiology of the National Institute of Public Health-National Institute of Hygiene, Warsaw, Poland ABSTRACT In this year, we commemorate the 130th anniversary of birth and 60th of death of Ludwik Hirszfeld, a promi- nent Polish scientist. Since 1920, he was the head of the Department of Bacteriology and Experimental Therapy of the National Institute of Hygiene (NIH). During the absence of Ludwik Rajchman in Poland, who was as- signed to the League of Nations, he was a factual director of the NIH. Ludwik Hirszfeld governed the scientific, organizational and didactic activities in the Institute. Concurrently, he collaborated with research centres abroad, especially within the field of public health. Mission of the NIH was concentrated on a broadly defined issues aimed at combating infectious diseases, initiating and developing the production of sera and vaccines, their controlling and introducing to the country as well as training health care personnel. INTRODUCTION Initially, the National Department of Sera and Vac- cines Evaluation was an independent unit, in which Prior to the First World War, Ludwik Hirszfeld sera and vaccines produced in the NIH and private stayed abroad, where he worked in different research factories were tested. In 1925, it was merged with the centres. In 1907-1909, he was an assistant in the De- Department of Bacteriology, forming the Department partment of Parasitology at the Cancer Research Centre of Bacteriology and Experimental Therapy of the NIH in Heidelberg while in 1909-1911 in its Serologic De- which was in charge of Ludwik Hirszfeld. In the sub- partment. Ludwik Hirszfeld was a co-discoverer (with sequent years, the following departments were formed: Emil von Dungern) of blood group inheritance; he also Microbiological Diagnostics, Serum Evaluation, Parasi- determined their nomenclature: A,B,AB, 0 (1911). He tology and Vaccine Evaluation. Each of the departments established a new discipline: seroanthropology by pre- conducted researches into different pathogen species, dicting and analyzing serologic conflict between mother causing infectious diseases, isolated during epidemics, and foetus. Until 1920, he held the position of assistant including typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, diphtheria, in the Faculty of Hygiene at the University in Zurich, scarlet fever, syphilis. Research findings were used in where in 1914 he habilitated on hygiene and immunity the diagnosis of these diseases, description and control (relation between immunological response and blood of epidemics and production of sera and vaccines. coagulability). In 1915, he was granted a military leave for participation in typhus epidemic control in Serbia. On the Macedonian front line, he established and man- NIH AS A RESEARCH CENTER IN CHARGE aged microbiological laboratory and trained personnel OF HIRSZFELD to combat infectious diseases. In this period, he discovered paratyphoid fever “I have achieved what I dreamt of: I could work for bacillus C, referred to as Salmonella hirszfeldi. the country, possessing the most beautiful apparatus At the beginning of 1920, the National Department of which Polish researcher have ever had at disposal” (1, Sera and Vaccines Evaluation at the NIH was established, p.118). modelled on the Ehrlich’s Institute for Experimental Ludwik Hirszfeld managed the scientific activities Therapy in Frankfurt am Main. Ludwik Hirszfeld was of the NIH, using but also introducing new discoveries appointed to be the head of this Department. in the field of microbiology and immunology. He be- © National Institute of Public Health – National Institute of Hygiene 696 Marta Gromulska No 4 lieved that a magnitude of practical tasks in the Institute Feliks Przesmycki recalled that the years between hindered “…establishment of research centres, creativ- 1925 and 1933 were the most creative in the scientific ity and disinterested curiosity, required for theoretical activities of the NIH (3). work…” (2). Researches conducted in the Department of Bacte- “Entirely pure science, without applied science, is riology and Experimental Therapy constantly referred impossible in institutes like ours as they serve for direct to the previous discoveries and Hirszfeld’s interest in sanitary tasks: they have to form scientific basis for blood groups; biochemical, immunological and anthro- health protection” (1, p.160). Ludwik Hirszfeld decided pological researchers were associated with serology. to complete such tasks. Wanda Halberówna was the closest colleague of In the “Report on scientific activities of the National Hirszfeld in this field. She studied serological groups Institute of Hygiene and National Department of Sera while during researches on cancer, commenced in the and Vaccines Evaluation in Warsaw (for the 5th anni- NIH in the 30s, she was involved in the analysis of versary of its establishment)”, L.Hirszfeld discussed antigenic properties of normal and cancerous tissues. the activities undertaken by particular departments and Hirszfeld expected that experimental studies on presented the possibilities of their development as well cancerous tissues would result in receiving antiserum. as scientific progress of his colleagues (2). “Based on these experiments, I made an assumption In this period, researches were mainly focused on that morphological changes in blood may result from typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, diphtheria, scarlet the presence of immunity cells directed against differ- fever whose epidemics constantly occurred in Poland. ent blood cells of somebody’s own body” (1, p.172). Having analyzed the blood smear of patients suf- Hirszfeld’s passion for ‘pure science’ did not affect fering from typhus, Ludwik Anigstein concluded that didactic activities within hygiene and epidemiology in band leukocytes in the first phase of disease accounted the branches of the National Hygiene School. for 30-45% of all white blood cells and its number was Training courses were the domain of the National decreasing in its second phase. Such phenomenon was Hygiene School. For the successive decades, the au- to serve as an indicator in the first phase of disease. He thorities in the field of hygiene, social medicine, sanitary also studied jaundice of non-bacterial origin. administration, biochemistry, statistics, epidemiology, In diphtheria laboratory, established in 1927, Julia occupational hygiene and sanitary engineering such Seydel investigated biology and morphology of dif- as Marcin Kacprzak, an incomparable propagator and ferent strains of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and promoter of hygiene, Stanisława Adamowiczowa, an their variability. In this laboratory, Ludwik and Hanna expert in statistics and epidemiology of infectious dis- Hirszfeld and paediatrician Henryk Brokman analyzed ease not only in Poland but also in the whole Europe, the transmission principles of diphtheria and other child- were trained in its branches. hood infectious diseases. Stanisław Sierakowski with his assistants (H. Rabinowiczówna, Z. Modrzewska, E. Salomonówna) LUDWIK HIRSZFELD AND HIS studied the effects of external conditions on bacterial COLLEAGUES IN THE NIH growth: thickness of culture medium, temperature, medium Ph. Physician-biologists, pharmacists, chemists, labo- Helena Sparrow conducted researches on vaccines ratory technicians with practice in hospitals, who were against typhus and scarlet fever. It consisted in im- trained in foreign universities in the times of partition, munization by administering pathogen together with and frequently, as it was in case of Ludwik Hirszfeld, convalescent’s serum. also persons practising in microbiological laborato- Under guidance of Hirszfeld, researches on strep- ries and quarantine stations during and after the First tococci and their poisons were performed. World War: Helena Sparrow, Feliks Przesmycki, Wiera In this respect, Hirszfeld collaborated with dr Feliks Głowacka, Józef Celarek were employed in the NIH. Przesmycki. He employed him in the Department of In “The Story of One Life”, Hirszfeld recalled his Bacteriology and Experimental Therapy and appointed colleagues from the NIH as scientific elite: him for the position of the head in the Microbiologi- Ludwik Anigstein – the first parasitologist in the cal Diagnostics. Dr Przesmycki carried out researches NIH, expert in subtropical medicine, Stanisław Siera- on antisera in animals and production of antibodies, kowski – an expert in microbiological methods, Marcin pathogenesis of scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumococcal Kacprzak – “hot heart and excellent pen” of professor infections, virulence of bacillary dysentery. and promoter of hygiene, Brunon Nowakowski – a hy- Hirszfeld claimed that for bacteriologists the most gienist, expert in occupational hygiene, Stanisława Ad- important tasks are to investigate the sensitivity and amowiczowa – an activist of the international women’s variability of pathogens. movement, Józef Lubczyński, Aleksander Szniolis – the No 4 Ludwik Hirszfeld in National Institute of Hygiene in 1920-1941 697 best sanitary engineers in Poland, Edward Grzegorze- Immunforschung, Klinische Wochenschrift, and French wski – initially, a volunteer in the NIH, Rockefellerist, language: Comptes rendus de la Société de biologie. Of co-founder of the WHO, Witold Chodźko – a director of importance, however, was for him to create an archival the National Hygiene School, Jerzy
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