There is such a proverb “the country must know its heroes by sight” and today I want to tell you about one of them - Vladimir Khavkin, a medical scientist who sacrificed his personal life to save humanity from epidemics of cholera and plague.
short biography
Vladimir Aronovich was born in 1860 in Odessa (Ukraine), where at all times of the Russian Empire lived a large diaspora of Jews. His parents were far from wealthy Jews. My mother's father and grandfather taught at a Jewish school.
Khavkin spent all his childhood and youth in Berdyansk, where his family moved soon after his birth. There, he first graduated with honors from cheder (a Jewish school for boys), and then graduated from a Russian men's gymnasium.
In 1879 he returned to Odessa, where he entered the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the Imperial Novorossiysk University and studied at the Department of Natural Sciences. At that time such outstanding personalities as I. M. Sechenov, I. I. Mechnikov and N. A. Umov. As you can imagine, he had someone to learn from and someone to look up to. However, he himself was a very intelligent student; it was not for nothing that Mechnikov called him his most beloved and capable student.
It is worth noting that by nature Vladimir Aronovich was a leader, a rebel and could not tolerate injustice in all its manifestations. He always took an active part in demonstrations and protests organized by students like him. And in the list of unreliable people kept by the Odessa gendarmes, he was recorded as a member of the Narodnaya Volya party. Because of this, in his second year, Khavkin was almost expelled from the university, but I. I. Mechnikov, along with some other teachers, defended him and several other students.
However, the police took the student on a pencil and even arrested him several times, but in the absence of evidence, they always let him go. In 1882, when Chief of Police General Strelnikov was killed, Vladimir Aronovich decided to retreat from the affairs of the Narodnaya Volya and stop participating in their protests. He chose science and began to spend all his time in the laboratory.
Promotional video:
However, the situation that prevailed at Novorossiysk University was so unbearable for students and teachers, since they were under constant police control and were not able to work normally and study, that it was decided to draw up a collective protest and send it to the Ministry of Education. It was signed by more than 90 students and a dozen teachers, among whom were both Khavkin and I. I. Mechnikov. As a result, they were all expelled.
V. KHAVKIN (FIRST RIGHT) IN THE LABORATORY OF I. I. MECHNIKOVA.
The expulsion from the university was a complete disaster for Vladimir Aronovich, because he did not finish his Ph. D. thesis, but he was allowed to defend it as an external student in 1884. He could not continue his scientific activity in Odessa and had no idea what to do next.
Mechnikov helped him out of his predicament, who put in a good word for him first at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), where he was offered the post of assistant professor. And then he arranged for him at the Pasteur Institute (France, Paris), where he worked himself. True, except for the position of librarian, they could not offer Khavkin anything, but he agreed to her. As a result, he worked in the library during the day, and spent all his free time in the laboratory.
Cholera vaccine development
At the time when Vladimir Aronovich worked in France, there were several epidemic zones of cholera in the world at once. The introduction of quarantine did not save the situation, so people needed a vaccine. And Khavkin decided to try to invent it.
For several months he worked for 12 hours and finally, through trial and error, he invented a vaccine, which he successfully tested on rabbits, rats and guinea pigs. However, it is one thing to test a vaccine in laboratory animals, and quite another to test a vaccine in real people.
To be 100% sure of his invention, the scientist invited three friends to his laboratory, two of whom were doctors. First, he administered the vaccine to himself, then to his comrades. The tests were successful.
In 1892, at a meeting of the Biological Society, Khavkin said that the vaccine he had developed was absolutely safe and, 6 days after administration, it develops immunity in humans. Mentors - Mechnikov and Pasteur, congratulated him on his success.
However, it was not immediately that the leading figures from different European countries drew attention to his invention. In particular, in the Russian Empire, the scientist was told directly that there was no need for a vaccine, although at this time cholera was walking in the southern provinces of the state. In France and Germany, they did the same. And only the British government allowed the use of the vaccine in India, which at that time was its colony. And they had no choice, since during the period from 1877-1890 in India, cholera took the lives of more than 1 million people.
In 1893, Vladimir Aronovich arrived in Calcutta, where he was allocated a small laboratory, as well as four local doctors to establish the production of a cholera vaccine.
Do not think that the Indians, who believed that illness and death were determined by higher powers to a person and that it was impossible to interfere with them, immediately agreed to vaccination. They resisted, threatened, and even stoned the doctors. But in the end, Khavkin managed to gain the confidence of the local population and in 2.5 years to make a vaccine for more than 42 thousand people, reducing the death rate from cholera by 10 times. And six months later, having recovered from malaria, he vaccinated another 30 thousand people. The epidemic was stopped.
Plague vaccine
In 1896, a new epidemic broke out in India - the plague epidemic, which was very dangerous to human life. Naturally, Vladimir Aronovich could not leave people in trouble, and therefore urgently came to Bombay, where he was allocated one room at the Medical College and four assistants were assigned.
For three months, Khavkin worked hard 12 hours seven days a week to create a vaccine. Unable to withstand such a pace, the team of assistants left him and he finished work alone.
As a result, a vaccine was created, and laboratory animals successfully responded to the drug and were not exposed to the plague. In order to prove that the invention also effectively copes with its task in humans, he injected himself with a 10-fold dose and had a mild plague. After that, all the teachers and students of the college, as well as the prisoners of Bombay, were vaccinated.
Vladimir Aronovich actually organized a laboratory for the fight against plague in Bombay, which later became the Research Center for Bacteriology and Epidemiology, bearing his name.
Finally, after so much time, recognition came to Khavkin. Germany, France and Russia are interested in his vaccines. Great Britain has not forgotten about him either. Queen Victoria herself in 1897 awarded the scientist one of the highest orders of the British Empire. And the French Academy of Sciences awarded him with a prize for his contribution to the development of medical science.
Conclusion
In India, Vladimir Aronovich worked for 18 long years, continuing to vaccinate people against cholera and plague until his departure. With the outbreak of the First World War, the scientist was engaged in vaccination of the military, and the last 15 years of his life he lived in Paris, doing charity work.
All his life he was lonely, because he could not afford to endanger the potential wife and children whom he faced on a daily basis. Therefore, he asked to spend all his savings - about 500 thousand pounds in his will on creating a fund of young scientists.
I want to say that today, of course, there are many talented scientists engaged in the development of vaccines against various serious diseases, including coronavirus. However, a person like Vladimir Khavkin would obviously not hurt us now. After all, the vaccines he created are still used in areas where cholera and plague are found, especially in countries below the poverty line and in various refugee camps.
