Hirszfeld* and the Abo Blood Groups

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Hirszfeld* and the Abo Blood Groups Br J Prev Soc Med: first published as 10.1136/jech.17.4.166 on 1 October 1963. Downloaded from Brit. J. prev. soc. Med. (1963), 17, 166-171 HIRSZFELD* AND THE ABO BLOOD GROUPS BY T. M. ALLAN Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Blood Transfusion Service, Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen The importance of Ludwik Hirszfeld's contribu- years later Hirszfeld and his wife (1919a, b, c) tions to our knowledge of the ABO blood group recorded the ABO blood group incidence in 8,000 system has been affirmed in various ways: by Karl soldiers and refugees on the Macedonian Front, and Landsteiner (1931) in his Nobel Address, by Hirsz- the hair colour of 1,000 French and British soldiers. feld's election to the Presidency of the Blood Group No correlations were found between hair colour and Section of the Second International Congress of the blood groups but, broadly speaking, the results Protected by copyright. Blood Transfusion (Paris, 1937), and by the naming showed a fall in the incidence of blood group A from in his memory of the Hirszfeld Microbiological Western Europe to India, and of blood group B Institute in Wroclaw (Milgrom, 1954). Despite this, from India to Western Europe. however, one very important part of his work on the The Hirszfelds concluded that the most likely blood groups still awaits appreciation and even cause of this East-to-West reciprocity was that a recognition-namely, his early, explicit awareness mainly A race and a mainly B race had developed, of the relevance of the ABO genes to natural by mutation from 0, in the West and East res- selection. Accordingly, an attempt is made in this pectively, and had since become mixed by migration communication to draw together his various com- or conquest and subsequent intermarriage. But ments on the subject, under headings of Climate, before they reached this conclusion the Hirszfelds Age and Sex, Social Class, Disease, and Race. put forward a much more interesting suggestion: "A is more suitable for increased resistance of the CLIMATE organism to disease in a temperate climate, while B In 1900 Mendel's principles of heredity, un- is more suitable in a hot climate". The perceptiveness http://jech.bmj.com/ appreciated since 1866, were published afresh in the of this remark is seen from an authoritative state- three main languages of science-in French by de ment made forty years later by Sheppard (1959a): Vries (1900a, b), in German by de Vries (1900c), Correns (1900a, b, c), and Tschermak (1900), and "In the long run selection due to changes in the as late as external environment will alter the gene pool and there- in English by Bateson (1900, 1901)-but fore the selective value for the different blood group 1909 Bateson had to report that "Of Mendelian in- genotypes.... There is, however, some evidence that the heritance of normal characteristics in man there is as environment can, on occasion, play a more direct role in on September 27, 2021 by guest. yet but little evidence" (author's italics). Almost altering the selective values of the various allelomorphs of immediately after this, however, von Dungern and the ABO locus. In every thorough investigation of Hirszfeld (1910, 1911) were able to show, from a polymorphism maintained by selection it has been shown study of the families of the teaching staff at Heidel- that the selective values of the phenotypes change berg University, that the principles of Mendelism markedly from place to place and from time to time. Thus apply to the normal human serological characteris- if the ABO blood groups are maintained by selection it Landsteiner 10 would be unreasonable to postulate that the selection tics discovered by (1900, 1901) years pressures are the same everywhere." (See also Sheppard, before, characteristics which they proceeded to 1959b.) name the blood groups AB, A, B, and O.t Eight t Their paper of 1910 has recently been translated into English- * This is the Polish spelling. Early publications use the German see Transfusion (1962), 2, 70-as one of the "Historical Milestones" spelling Hirschfeld (see References). series. 166 Br J Prev Soc Med: first published as 10.1136/jech.17.4.166 on 1 October 1963. Downloaded from HIRSZFELD AND THE ABO BLOOD GROUPS 167 Furthermore, if the Hirszfelds' environmental 1 04 (119 :104)-and they declared that "if this hypothesis were well-founded, one would expect the finding were confirmed it would have far-reaching high Indian incidence of B, which was one of the theoretical significance". Unfortunately, however, no pillars of that hypothesis, to be characteristic not reference to Hirszfeld and Zborowski's observation only of the Indian (Caucasoid) race but also of the was made in the monographs of Snyder (1929), Mongolian race, and this is found to be so. Indeed, Lattes (1929), Steffan (1932), Schiff (1933), and Mourant (1954) has drawn attention to the remark- Wiener (1935), or in the lengthy reviews of Levine able fact that the regions in which the incidence of B (1928), Witebsky (1932), and Holzer (1935), and the is highest of all in both races are those in which their matter lay undisturbed for 26 years. * Eventually the territories adjoin, and he even suggests that this subject was brought to life again by Sanghvi (1951), phenomenon may indicate environmental selection. who, in a series of 2,200 New York and Bombay Buettner-Janusch (1959) goes still further along the babies, found a significantly higher male-to-female same lines by pointing out that the Hirszfelds' ratio for 0 babies of 0 mothers than for A babies of East-to-West fall in the ratio of B to A "follows A mothers-a finding confirmed by several large certain relatively consistent changes in altitude and series in 1954-59 (Allan, 1959). This ironically sug- environment", and Huxley (1960) has suggested, on gests that, if Hirszfeld and Zborowski had enlarged general grounds, that "Well-defined clines in- their series of newborn babies to even as much as explicable by ABO gene-diffusion are a possibility to half the size of the Hirszfelds' own 1919 series of be borne in mind". In fact the view is now widely 8,000 adults, they might have anticipated Sanghvi's held that one of the functions of a morphic system finding and failed to confirm their own. As it is, their like that of the ABO genes may be to extend the own finding has now been partly confirmed on fairly environmental range of the species in which it large numbers, for in the aggregate of all known occurs (Huxley, 1955), and that, in the words of series of white babies so far reported (Allan, 1959) Protected by copyright. Dobzhansky (1955), "Genetic variability is a means the ratio of male to female babies is significantly whereby Mendelian populations master environ- higher for the babies of AB mothers than for those of mental diversity". See also Levene (1953), Wad- non-AB mothers-i.e. 1 26 (667 : 531) compared to dington (1957), and Dobzhansky (1960). 1-08 (16,130 :14,982). In this connexion it is interesting that Hirszfeld and Zborowski (1926) also found a shortage of AGE AND SEX group 0 female offspring from the mating class Though the Hirszfelds at once rejected their own O fathers by A mothers and a shortage of group A hypothesis that "A is more suitable for increased female offspring from the mating class A fathers by resistance of the organism to disease in a temperate O mothers, and also that this finding has nearly climate, while B is more suitable in a hot climate", always been misrepresented (Obituary Notice, 1954; the basic idea exemplified in it-i.e. that the ABO Allan, 1954). genes have selective value-very soon became a http://jech.bmj.com/ familiar and productive one. As well as leading to SOCIAL CLASS many investigations, especially in Finland, of the Though the Hirszfelds rejected their own hypo- relationship of the blood groups to particular thesis that the A and B genes might have different diseases it also prompted investigations of the selective values under different climatic conditions, relationship of the blood groups to longevity. Thus Hirszfeld suggested 9 years later (1928) that the a series of 1,000 post mortem subjects in Munich selective values of the ABO genes might differ in the (Oppenheim and Voigt, 1926; Lutzeler and Dor- different social classes, with their varying environ- manns, 1929) led the authors to suggest that B mental stresses. Thus, in commenting on the results on September 27, 2021 by guest. individuals might have, on average, the longest life- of his blood grouping of 1,200 Warsaw school- span, and Hirszfeld (1928) considered the same children, he remarked that "the table shows a rather possibility on the basis of a series of 3,000 old people higher percentage of group B children in the State living in Copenhagen (Thomsen, 1927; Hansen, schools. How easy it would be to relate this cir- 1928). cumstance to some disease or other with a mainly Meanwhile, at the other end of the age-scale, working-class incidence!" Whether or not the Hirszfeld and Zborowski (1925) had blood-grouped exclamation mark means that this time Hirszfeld 264 newborn babies and their mothers. They found that the was very male-to-female ratio much higher * Oppenhoim and Voigt may have known of the finding, for for the babies of AB mothers than for those of Hirszfeld (1926) writes of their having told him in conversation that in their series of 500 Munich post mortem cases there were only four non-AB mothers-i.e.
Recommended publications
  • Isolation and Characterization of Phages Active Against Paenibacillus Larvae Causing American Foulbrood in Honeybees in Poland
    viruses Article Isolation and Characterization of Phages Active against Paenibacillus larvae Causing American Foulbrood in Honeybees in Poland Ewa Jo ´nczyk-Matysiak 1,* , Barbara Owczarek 1, Ewa Popiela 2, Kinga Switała-Jele´ ´n 3, Paweł Migdał 2 , Martyna Cie´slik 1 , Norbert Łodej 1, Dominika Kula 1, Joanna Neuberg 1, Katarzyna Hodyra-Stefaniak 3, Marta Kaszowska 4, Filip Orwat 1, Natalia Bagi ´nska 1 , Anna Mucha 5 , Agnieszka Belter 6,7 , Mirosława Skupi ´nska 6, Barbara Bubak 1, Wojciech Fortuna 8,9, Sławomir Letkiewicz 9,10, Paweł Chorbi ´nski 11, Beata Weber-D ˛abrowska 1,9, Adam Roman 2 and Andrzej Górski 1,9,12 1 Bacteriophage Laboratory, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Rudolf Weigl Street 12, 53-114 Wroclaw, Poland; barbara.owczarek@hirszfeld.pl (B.O.); martyna.cieslik@hirszfeld.pl (M.C.); norbert.lodej@hirszfeld.pl (N.Ł.); dominika8808@interia.pl (D.K.); joannaneuberg@gmail.com (J.N.); filip.orwat@hirszfeld.pl (F.O.); natalia.baginska@hirszfeld.pl (N.B.); barbara.bubak@hirszfeld.pl (B.B.); beata.weber-dabrowska@hirszfeld.pl (B.W.-D.); andrzej.gorski@hirszfeld.pl (A.G.) 2 Department of Environment Hygiene and Animal Welfare, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Chełmo´nskiegoStreet 38C, 51-630 Wroclaw, Poland; ewa.popiela@upwr.edu.pl (E.P.); pawel.migdal@upwr.edu.pl (P.M.); adam.roman@upwr.edu.pl (A.R.) 3 Pure Biologics, Du´nskaStreet 11, 54-427 Wroclaw, Poland; kinga@purebiologics.com (K.S.-J.);´ Citation: Jo´nczyk-Matysiak,E.; k.hodyra@purebiologics.com (K.H.-S.) 4 Owczarek, B.; Popiela, E.; Laboratory of Microbial Immunochemistry and Vaccines, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Switała-Jele´n,K.;´ Migdał, P.; Cie´slik, Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, 54-427 Wrocław, Poland; marta.kaszowska@hirszfeld.pl 5 ˙ M.; Łodej, N.; Kula, D.; Neuberg, J.; Department of Genetics, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Kozuchowska 7, 51-631 Wroclaw, Poland; anna.mucha@upwr.edu.pl Hodyra-Stefaniak, K.; et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Phmd 140 Ang 570-572.Indd
    Postepy Hig Med Dosw. (online), 2005; 59: 570-572 www.phmd.pl Original Article Received: 2005.11.29 Nec Soli Cedit Accepted: 2005.12.02 Published: 2005.12.07 (article dedicated to Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld) Andrzej Górski Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Wrocław The Medical University of Warsaw Key words: Hirszfeld • Weigl • bacteriophages • war Full-text PDF: http://www.phmd.pl/pub/phmd/vol_59/8540.pdf Word count: 2460 Tables: — Figures: — References: 5 Author’s address: Prof. Andrzej Górski, M.D, Ph.D, Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, Rudolfa Weigla 12, 53-114 Wrocław, Poland, e-mail: agorski@iitd.pan.wroc.pl The life and work of Ludwik Hirszfeld was the subject of a threat of war he should remain in the country. He was soon deliberation by the well-known author Paweł Jasienica, and to experience the dramatic consequences of this decision, in 1984 a short book appeared entitled “Ludwik Hirszfeld” but the career he might have had in the United States would by Marek Jaworski. Of course, articles have also appeared on certainly have been no less spectacular than those of two special occasions, including the enlightening and emotional of his students. Feliks Milgrom was forced to emigrate recollections by Feliks Milgrom, one of Hirszfeld’s close after Hirszfeld’s death and he went to the USA, where students, in his “My Association with Ludwik Hirszfeld, he attained the most prestigious positions in American 1945–54” (Arch. Immun. Ther. Exp. 1998, 46, 201). In microbiology and became Distinguished Professor of view of the fact that Hirszfeld’s own work, “The Story Microbiology at the State University of New York.
    [Show full text]
  • Patterns of Cooperation, Collaboration and Betrayal: Jews, Germans and Poles in Occupied Poland During World War II1
    July 2008 Patterns of Cooperation, Collaboration and Betrayal: Jews, Germans and Poles in Occupied Poland during World War II1 Mark Paul Collaboration with the Germans in occupied Poland is a topic that has not been adequately explored by historians.2 Holocaust literature has dwelled almost exclusively on the conduct of Poles toward Jews and has often arrived at sweeping and unjustified conclusions. At the same time, with a few notable exceptions such as Isaiah Trunk3 and Raul Hilberg,4 whose findings confirmed what Hannah Arendt had written about 1 This is a much expanded work in progress which builds on a brief overview that appeared in the collective work The Story of Two Shtetls, Brańsk and Ejszyszki: An Overview of Polish-Jewish Relations in Northeastern Poland during World War II (Toronto and Chicago: The Polish Educational Foundation in North America, 1998), Part Two, 231–40. The examples cited are far from exhaustive and represent only a selection of documentary sources in the author’s possession. 2 Tadeusz Piotrowski has done some pioneering work in this area in his Poland’s Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces, and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1998). Chapters 3 and 4 of this important study deal with Jewish and Polish collaboration respectively. Piotrowski’s methodology, which looks at the behaviour of the various nationalities inhabiting interwar Poland, rather than focusing on just one of them of the isolation, provides context that is sorely lacking in other works. For an earlier treatment see Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation, 1939–1944 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986), chapter 4.
    [Show full text]
  • „Mikroskopów Nie Trzyma Się W Szafie” – O Dokonaniach Ludwika Hirszfelda
    Tom 68 2019 Numer 2 (323) Strony 145–156 Marcin czerwiński1, UrszUla Glensk2 1Laboratorium Glikobiologii Instytut Immunologii i Terapii Doświadczalnej PAN im. Ludwika Hirszfelda ul. Rudolfa Weigla 12, 53-114 Wrocław 2Instytut Dziennikarstwa i Komunikacji Społecznej Uniwersytet Wrocławski ul. Joliot-Curie 15, 50-383 Wrocław E-mail: marcin.czerwinski@hirszfeld.pl urszula.glensk@uni.wroc.pl „MIKROSKOPÓW NIE TRZYMA SIĘ W SZAFIE” – O DOKONANIACH LUDWIKA HIRSZFELDA grup krwi układu ABO. Odkryli też grupy A1 oraz A2 i stwierdzili, że częstość ich wy- stępowania jest różna w zależności od grupy etnicznej. W latach międzywojennych Hirsz- feld brał udział w organizacji Państwowego Zakładu Higieny w Warszawie. Po II wojnie światowej jako pierwszy w Polsce wykorzy- stał teorię konfliktu serologicznego i zastoso- wał ją w praktyce klinicznej, co uratowało życie ponad 200 dzieci. Był twórcą i pierw- szym dyrektorem Instytutu Immunologii i Terapii Doświadczalnej PAN, obecnie nazwa- nego jego imieniem. Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954), a physician, immunologist and microbi- ologist. Together with Emil von Dungern he showed that blood groups are inheritable, and established the terminology of ABO system. He also discovered A1 and A2 blood groups, and proved that blood group fre- quency depends on ethnicity. In the years between the wars, he organized the National Institute of Hygiene in Warsaw. After World Ludwik Hirszfeld w czasie pobytu w Szwajcarii. War II he was the first in Poland to use the theory of serological conflict and implement- ed it in clinical practice, saving life of over Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884-1954), 200 children. He was also the founder and lekarz, immunolog i mikrobiolog.
    [Show full text]
  • Warsaw Ghetto, 1941-2
    Medical History, 1989, 33: 399-419. AN UNDERGROUND MEDICAL SCHOOL IN THE WARSAW GHETTO, 1941-2 by CHARLES G. ROLAND * There is within us some hidden power, mysterious and secret, which keeps us going, keeps us alive, despite the natural law. Ifwe cannot live on what is permitted, we live on what is forbidden. Chaim Kaplan, 10 March 1940, Warsawl The Holocaust-the deliberate destruction of most of the Jews and Gypsies of Europe along with enormous numbers of the non-Jewish population of eastern Europe-is arguably the least understandable event since the Creation. Reactions to the Holocaust by those who were enmeshed in it are, however, more comprehensible. A very few committed suicide;2 some became totally involved in self-preservation at all costs; many tried to ignore the grim reality and avoided facing up to its implications; most behaved decently and even nobly as the situation deteriorated. One inspirational reaction of Polish Jews was the creation and operation of a medical school within the Warsaw ghetto, modelled on standard European curricular lines, though with appropriate adaptations to accommodate unique circumstances. Its intent was to educate Jewish youth in medicine and, ifthe situation permitted and the war lasted that long, to qualify physicians to fill the depleted ranks ofthe Jewish medical profession in Warsaw. The founders thus intended the school to express their belief that they still maintained some control over their lives and their futures. With the conventional wisdom of hindsight we can perceive the impossibility of the task. The odds can scarcely have seemed much better to those who established the school.
    [Show full text]
  • State School of Hygiene As a Department of Education in the National Instutute of Hygiene in Warsaw*
    Rocz Panstw Zakl Hig 2019;70(4):423-429 http://wydawnictwa.pzh.gov.pl/roczniki_pzh/ https://doi.org/10.32394/rpzh/2019.0091 STATE SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AS A DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN THE NATIONAL INSTUTUTE OF HYGIENE IN WARSAW* Kazimiera Ćwiek-Ludwicka National Institute of Public Health - National Institute of Hygiene, 24 Chocimska str., 00-791 Warsaw, Poland ABSTRACT The article presents the history of the establishment of the State School of Hygiene (PSH) in Poland after the First World War. The difficulties faced by the public health service in a country destroyed by war and created after the reunification of the lands, which for over 150 years remained under the control of three powers, were pointed out. It discusses how the foundations of modern teaching in the field of public health were created in the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH) in Warsaw, an institution to which the Ministry of Public Health entrusted tasks related to health education in the country. The State School of Hygiene was built by the Polish Government with a significant financial contribution from the John Davison Rockefeller Foundation. The official opening ceremony took place on 20 April 1926. The State School of Hygiene in Warsaw was the first such school in Europe. It educated professional staff for the health service in Poland, especially sanitary physicians, sanitary inspectors, nurses and staff to work in health offices. The importance and scope of influence of the State School of Hygiene as the Department of Education in the National Institute of Hygiene was constantly increasing, as evidenced by the number of students (about 800 per year) participating in courses, especially in the first years after its establishment.
    [Show full text]
  • Regenerative Potential of CD45 Negative Marrow Cells Relies on Two Separate Subpopulations Being Either Anti-Inflammatory Or
    JOINT EVENT 22nd Edition of International Conference on Immunology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases & 12th Edition of International Conference on May 10-11, 2018 Tissue Engineering and Frankfurt, Germany Regenerative Medicine J Transm Dis Immun 2018, Volume 2 DOI: 10.21767/2471-8084-C1-003 Regenerative potential of CD45 negative marrow cells relies on two separate subpopulations being either anti-inflammatory or pro-angiogenic Andrzej Lange Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy – PAS, Poland n solid organs, there are the cells with regenerative potential. with the MSC markers played rather a moderate role in preventing IThey can start regeneration of the damaged tissue with a the leg amputation as the main actors are endothelial progenitor support coming from the bone marrow. In the early 2000s, we cells (EPC, CD391+) which are present in the implant. Similarly to started a project in which the mononuclear cells of bone marrow leukophoretic product BMMC also the marrow cells centrifuged (BMMC) were used to save the legs of patients with critical limb in own plasma gradient (commercially available kit) is enriched ischemia (CLI). Injection of the cells into the affected limb resulted in the cells having MSC and EPC markers. The cells of the latter in several following events which started with a pain release than composition injected intra-articularly into the hip or knee brought healing of ulcerations and finally the shortening of a distance of a relief in patients with osteoarthritis. We believe that the positive claudication. 40% of 23 patients with CLI receiving BMMC enjoyed effect of this cellular therapy is due to the presence in a fresh remission lasted up to 10 years or more.
    [Show full text]
  • Ludwik Fleck As a Medical Scientist, Microbiologist and Immunologist
    The Global and the Local: The History of Science and the Cultural Integration of Europe. nd Proceedings of the 2 ICESHS (Cracow, Poland, September 6–9, 2006) / Ed. by M. Kokowski. Andrzej Grzybowski * Ludwik Fleck as a medical scientist, microbiologist and immunologist LUDWIK FLECK WAS BORN IN LWÓW on July 11, 1896. He gained his first experiences in microbiology as an assistant of Prof. Rudolf Weigl — a famous typhus researcher and inventor of anti-typhus vaccine, at the Lwów University of Jan Kazimierz (UJK). After he received the medical degree from the Lwów University in 1922, he specialized in bacteriology in Vienna. Then he became the head of the bacteriological and chemical laboratories of the State Hospital in Lwów. His expertise primarily included the fields of microbiology and immunology. After the Second World War, during which he was imprisoned in the Auschwitz and the Buchenwald concentration camps, he settled in Lublin (since Lwów was ‗ethnically cleansed‘ by the Soviet occupiers), where he headed the Institute of Microbiology of the School of Medicine at the Maria Skłodowska-Curie University, previously directed by the very famous Polish immunologist Prof. Ludwik Hirszfeld (also ‗ethnically cleansed‘ from Lwów by the Soviet occupiers). In 1952 he moved to Warsaw, where he became the Director of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Mother and Child State Institute, and, finally, in 1957 he emigrated to Israel. He died there in 1961, at the age of 64, of a second heart attack. Although presently Ludwik Fleck is predominantly recognized as a philosopher of medicine and science, he was a very productive researcher in the fields of microbiology, serology and immunology.
    [Show full text]
  • Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954) – Pioneer of Blood Type Testing
    Copyright Athens Medical Society www.mednet.gr/archives ARCHIVES OF HELLENIC MEDICINE: ISSN 11-05-3992 BIOGRAPHY ARCHIVES OF HELLENIC MEDICINE 2020, 37(Suppl 2):63 -67 ÒØÞÓàÑäØÑ ¦f¿ce¦c§§d©e¥d­e¦®fe¥d­ áĀø -67 ............................................... J. Ostrowski 1, Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954) – B. Rutkowski 2, Pioneer of blood type testing P. Rutkowski 3 1Department of the History of Medicine, Significance for organ transplants Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Warsaw 2Department of Nephrology, Proper selection of the organ to be transplanted requires a series of tests and Transplantation and Internal Medicine, determines the effectiveness of the treatment. The selection is preceded by Medical University Gdansk a series of tests performed between the donor and recipient: pre-selection 3Department of General Nursery, according to blood group, human leukocyte antigens (HLA), panel reactive Medical University Gdansk, Poland antibody (PRA) and crossmatch. Of course, the first condition is the compliance of blood types between the donor and the recipient. In 1901, Karl Landsteiner discovered that human blood had different properties and distinguished Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954) – three blood groups: A, B, and C. In 1910–1911, Emil von Dungern and Lud- Πρωτοπόρος των εξετάσεων τύπου wik Hirszfeld discovered the Mendelian inheritance of blood types. Their αίματος. Μεγάλης σημασίας division into four basic groups A, B, AB and O has been used since 1928. The για τις μεταμοσχεύσεις οργάνων same researchers found subtypes A1 and A2 within type A. Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954) was born in Warsaw and studied medicine in Würzburg. In 1907, Περίληψη στο τέλος του άρθρου he received a doctorate at the University of Berlin and moved to the Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg and, in 1911, to the University of Zurich.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Copyrighted Material INTRODUCTION Today Wrocław is a city that at first glance reveals little of the dramatic rupture of 1945. It appears no different than any other major city in Poland. It is the seat of a voivodeship administration, a university town with important cultural institutions, a transportation hub, an industrial city, and also, increasingly, a magnet for tourists. The central squares and streets in the Old Town look as if they had survived the war without significant dam- age. Visitors familiar with photographs of the ruins of 1945 stare in amaze- ment at the Baroque façades of the patrician houses and of the university. They hardly believe their own eyes as they stroll along the seemingly old walls on Cathedral Island beneath the towers of the apparently untouched Gothic cathedral. If one recalls the tragedy of 1945, when much of Wrocław was re- duced to rubble and an entire country shifted westward, displacing millions of people, this normal and prosperous city strikes the viewer as somewhat disturbing, nothing short of surreal. Even in an incomparably less complex entity such as a village, we would expect the expulsion of its entire population to lead inevitably to its ruin, for how could any place survive the loss of local knowledge accumulated over generations, of traditions expunged from one day to the next. And in fact the postwar era in many places in Poland’s western and northern regions, which had once been the eastern regions of Germany, was marked by such decline. In his fascinating study Niechciane miasta (Unwanted Towns), Zdzisław Mach examined the consequences of the population exchange for the town of Lu- bomierz (formerly Liebenthal) in Lower Silesia.1 Here, the expulsion of the German population led to the desolation and deterioration of a small town that had been completely intact at the end of the war.
    [Show full text]
  • Professors Rudolf Weigl and Ludwik Hirszfeld – in the Meanders of History
    Annals of Parasitology 2012, 58(4), 189–199 Copyright© 2012 Polish Parasitological Society Review articles Professors Rudolf Weigl and Ludwik Hirszfeld – in the meanders of History Elżbieta Lonc 1, Grażyna Gościniak 2 1 Institute of Genetics and Microbiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Wrocław University, Przybyszewskiego 66/77, 51-148 Wroclaw, Poland 2 Chair and Department of Microbiology, Medical Faculty, The Silesian Piasts Medical University in Wrocław, T. Chałubińskiego 4, 50-368 Wroclaw, Poland Corresponding author: Elżbieta Lonc; E-mail: elzbieta.lonc@microb.uni.wroc.pl ABSTRACT. The lives and scientific achievements of two outstanding Polish biologists – Professors Rudolf Weigl (1883–1957) and Ludwik Hirszfeld (1884–1954) – are presented in the context of the social and political events before and after World War II. The main aim is to recall and emphasise the very modern studies conducted in the two decades between the wars in the Polish scientific centres of Lvov and Warsaw, and the resulting concepts which provided the basis for both the modern microbiological-parasitological experiments and the organisation of post-war teaching and research institutions in Poland. An attempt is made at analysing the effect of scientific paradigms from the boundary of the 19th and 20th centuries on the activity and attitudes of the two outstanding scientists. Their fates coincided in the dramatic war circumstances. Attention is drawn to human and extra-human factors which determined their very different fates in the last, post-war period of their lives. In August 1945 Prof. L. Hirszfeld moved from Lublin to Wrocław where he became famous as the first Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Wrocław University and the founder of the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
    [Show full text]
  • Ludwik Hirszfeld (05.08.1884–07.03.1954)
    Ludwik Hirszfeld (05.08.1884–07.03.1954) doctor, bacteriologist and immunologist, founder of the Polish school of immunology, a new field of science – seroanthropology and the basics of blood group science (with Emil von Dungen), nominated for the Nobel Prize for his numerous scientific achievements Hirszfeld was born in Warsaw, and studied medicine at the universities of Würzburg and Berlin. He was awarded the title of doctor for his work on agglutination, and his habilitation for his work on the relationship between immune phenomena and blood clotting. He worked at the Cancer Research Institute in Heidelberg and the Institute of Hygiene in Zurich. During World War I, he participated in combating the typhus epidemic in Serbia and in organising the local health service. After returning to Poland, from 1920 he worked at the National Institute of Surowic Research in Warsaw, later incorporated into the National Institute of Hygiene (PZH), which he co-founded. In the years 1924-1925 he was the director of the Institute, and in the years 1924-1939 the head of the PZH. From 1924 he was a professor at the Free Polish University. In 1926, he obtained his habilitation for the second time at the University of Warsaw as a bacteriologist and immunologist. From 1930 he was an active member of the Warsaw Scientific Society. In 1931 he was awarded the title of professor. In the years 1931-1935 and 1947-1952 he was the president of the Polish Society of Microbiologists and Epidemiologists. During the defense of Warsaw in September 1939, he organized a blood transfusion center in the city.
    [Show full text]