Mahatma Haffkine: The Great Triumph Over the Black Death

Dr. Haffkine never established a family of his own. He believed he had no right to personal happiness, given the mortal dangers to which he constantly exposed himself. 

While sacrifice of this nature was laid upon the altar of science, he demanded neither fame nor honors in return. Yet he entered history as a supreme hero who, through the power of human intellect and will, vanquished the devastating diseases that had consumed millions of lives for centuries. 

It all began in 1860, when immediately following the birth of their son, Marcus-Wolf, the family of Aaron Pinchasovich Haffkine, a teacher at a state Jewish school, and Rosalie Duvid-Aizikovna (née Landsberg), relocated from Odessa to the coastal town of Berdyansk. Marcus-Wolf was regarded as exceptionally gifted; he graduated with distinction from a local Jewish school, the heder, and subsequently completed his studies at the male gymnasium. 

Today, the former gymnasium building houses the Berdyansk Pedagogical Institute, at the entrance of which a bust of the eminent alumnus was erected in 2005. In 1879, the vigorous and charismatic youth arrived in Odessa—a city that had recently lost its free port status of porto franco, but preserved its freethinking spirit and unique cultural synthesis of diverse nationalities and faiths. 

Adopting the name Vladimir, Haffkine enrolled in the natural sciences department at the Imperial Novorossiya University in Odessa. This fell during a brief historical window when the university operated without the discriminatory quota limits placed on Jewish students. For instance, in 1886, Jewish students accounted for 30.7% of the enrollment in the medical faculty and 41.2% in law.

The academic staff of Novorossiya University featured distinguished professors of high caliber: physicist N.A. Umov, physiologist I.M. Sechenov, zoologist and embryologist A.O. Kovalevsky, and the preeminent biologist and pathologist Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, celebrated for his pioneering research in immunology.

Vladimir Haffkine demonstrated great promise and quickly became Mechnikov’s favored pupil. However, the young student's conduct was far from conventional. Due to the meticulous record-keeping of the Tsarist gendarmerie and police, we know that he secretly attended meetings of the underground revolutionary organization "Narodnaya Volya" (People's Will), where he associated with the notable revolutionary activist Vera Figner, known as "Vera the Revolver."

Classified as politically unreliable, Haffkine was placed under open police surveillance. Active participation in student demonstrations led to his first arrest and subsequent expulsion from the university. Fortunately, the academic senate intervened to reinstate the exceptionally talented student. 

In 1882, Haffkine was arrested once more, on suspicion of complicity in an assassination plot against General Strelnikov. Interrogations yielded no results; the police could not prove his connection to the conspirators. A few days after his release in the spring of that year, Strelnikov was assassinated on Primorsky Boulevard. Following this event, Vladimir Haffkine terminated all associations with "Narodnaya Volya" and dedicated his efforts entirely to scientific research. 

Regrettably, civic circumstances compelled him once more to take to the streets of Odessa in defense of his people. In 1884, rumors circulated through Odessa implicating Jews in the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, instigating a wave of anti-Semitic pogroms. Among the Jewish students who formed self-defense detachments to protect vulnerable communities was Vladimir Haffkine. 

Physically robust, he engaged in street confrontations to shield innocent citizens from rioters. He was arrested while bearing arms, but authorities were unable to secure a conviction for inciting riots. Upon his release from custody, Haffkine returned to his scientific investigations.

Meanwhile, academic tensions at Novorossiya University escalated. Students drafted a collective petition to the Minister of Education, protesting the continuous oversight of the university inspectorate and police, which they argued stifled intellectual initiative and scientific inquiry.

A subsequent petition was delivered to the rector of Novorossiya University. Haffkine, naturally, signed both appeals, resulting in his second expulsion. Concurrently, several prominent professors, including Mechnikov, resigned in protest of the administration's repressive actions.

Despite these obstacles, Haffkine was permitted to defend his doctoral desertation externally in 1884. By 1885–1886, his initial scientific contributions were published in the prestigious French journal "Annales des sciences naturelles."

Nevertheless, because Vladimir Haffkine remained blacklisted by the authorities as politically unreliable, he was barred from pursuing scientific research or securing a teaching position in Odessa.

In 1888, he emigrated from Russia permanently, relocating to Paris. Under the name Waldemar, and with the patronage of his mentor Mechnikov, he obtained employment as an assistant librarian at the Pasteur Institute, recently established by the legendary French microbiologist Louis Pasteur. Having conquered rabies, Pasteur inspired his disciples to tackle other formidable infectious diseases. 

The resolute Waldemar accepted his clerical duties gladly for the privilege of conducting research in the institute's laboratories. Consequently, in 1892, he developed an anticholera vaccine—the first effective attenuated pathogen serum of Haffkine's design.

Haffkine first tested the vaccine on himself. He then enlisted three close associates—political émigrés from Russia, two of whom were medical doctors. Waldemar Haffkine subsequently reported to the Paris Biological Society that the vaccine was safe and established immunity against cholera within six days. Pasteur and Mechnikov commended their pupil on this profound scientific breakthrough. 

Dr. Haffkine then faced the equally arduous task of implementing the vaccine in practice. Surprisingly, public authorities and medical communities proved highly resistant to adopting the new remedy.

In 1892, a major breakout of cholera was registered in Russian Turkestan, posing an imminent epidemic threat to Russia and Europe at large.

"Regarding the plague, whether it will reach us cannot yet be said with certainty... Quarantines are an ineffective measure. Some hope is offered by Haffkine's inoculations, but, unfortunately, Haffkine is not popular in Russia," wrote the eminent author and physician Anton Chekhov at the time.

Aware of his unfavorable standing with the Tsarist government, Haffkine requested Louis Pasteur to endorse a letter to the Tsar's cousin, Prince of Oldenburg, proposing the deployment of the new vaccine in the southern provinces where the epidemic raged. The proposal was rejected.

The governments of Spain, France, and Germany similarly declined Dr. Haffkine's petitions to demonstrate the efficacy of his vaccine in localized cholera outbreaks. At the time, the very concept of vaccination was widely regarded as a hazardous enterprise, a view shared not only by the public but also by many medical authorities.

A breakthrough occurred in 1893. Cholera had devastated British India for years; between 1877 and 1890, the disease claimed over a million lives of locals and British colonists alike. Unable to contain the epidemic, the British government invited Dr. Haffkine to Calcutta, appointing him State Bacteriologist to the British Crown.

Over the course of two years, Dr. Haffkine established the mass production of the vaccine under challenging field conditions. Once preparations were complete, he set out with local physicians to a neighboring village.

However, they encountered severe resistance; the local populace remained unconvinced of the vaccine's safety. The medical team was met with threats and a barrage of stones. Refusing to abandon his mission, Dr. Haffkine quietly removed his shirt and instructed his colleague to administer the vaccine to him in full view of the hostile crowd. 

This demonstration proved decisive. One hundred and sixteen villagers subsequently stepped forward to receive the vaccination, and none fell ill. Word of the courageous physician and his potent remedy spread rapidly. Dr. Haffkine and his colleagues ultimately vaccinated 72,000 individuals, spending months traveling through remote areas, enduring malaria and poor rations. Their perseverance was rewarded: within two years, the mortality rate in the vaccinated regions dropped by seventy-five percent. 

The widespread administration of the cholera vaccine effectively brought an end to centuries of uncontrolled cholera epidemics. Dr. Haffkine's refined vaccine remains in use today to contain localized outbreaks. 

His work, however, was not complete. In 1896, British authorities reassigned Dr. Haffkine to Bombay, where a severe outbreak of bubonic plague had emerged. In merely three months, Haffkine and his small team developed the first viable plague vaccine. As before, he initiated clinical trials by inoculating himself.

The laboratory Haffkine established in Bombay eventually evolved into one of the largest bacteriological and epidemiological research centers in Asia, renamed in 1925 as the Haffkine Institute. The official founding date of the center is celebrated as January 10, 1897—the day Haffkine tested the plague vaccine on his own person.

For several years, Dr. Haffkine personally directed mass vaccination campaigns. Observers from Russia, Germany, France, Italy, and other nations were dispatched to India, and their reports on Haffkine’s extraordinary success facilitated the global adoption of his vaccine. 

Over the span of forty years, more than thirty-five million individuals received the vaccine, averting mortality from one of the most devastating scourges in human history. 

In 1897, Queen Victoria appointed Dr. Haffkine a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire. Thus, the Jewish youth from Berdyansk, once a political radical, attained knighthood as a globally recognized scientist.

Sir Waldemar Haffkine dedicated over two decades to his work in India, returning to Europe in 1915 during the First World War. Upon his recommendation, British soldiers deploying to the front lines received combined inoculations against typhoid fever and paratyphoid A and B for the first time.

Upon retirement, Dr. Haffkine settled in Paris, where he returned to his Jewish heritage, adopting the name Mordechai Zeev Haffkine. Deeply concerned with the welfare of European Jewry, he actively supported the Zionist movement and dedicated his remaining years to Jewish philanthropic foundations. 

To the very end, his life was defined by an unwavering commitment to the betterment of humanity. Adapting to different nations and names, he forged a singular path that preserved the lives of millions and their descendants.