Waldemar Haffkine
Russian bacteriologist
Died when: 70 years 225 days (847 months)Star Sign: Pisces
Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine CIE (Ukrainian: ????????? ????????-????? ??????;Russian: ????????-????? ??????; 15 March 1860 Odessa – 26 October 1930 Lausanne) was a Ukrainian-French bacteriologist known for his pioneering work in vaccines.
Born into a Jewish family in Odessa, Russian Empire, Haffkin was educated at the University of Odessa and later emigrated first to Switzerland, then to France, working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he developed a cholera vaccine that he tried out successfully in India.
He is recognized as the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague.He tested the vaccines on himself.
Lord Joseph Lister named him "a saviour of humanity".He was appointed Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in Queen Victoria's 1897 Diamond Jubilee Honours.
The Jewish Chronicle of that time noted "a Ukraine Jew, trained in the schools of European science, saves the lives of Hindus and Mohammedans and is decorated by the descendant of William the Conqueror and Alfred the Great." In his final years Haffkine became more religious, becoming an advocate and philanthropist for Orthodox Jewish causes and a supporter of Zionism.