Rudolf Weigl facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Rudolf Weigl
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Rudolf Weigl in his laboratory
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| Born | 2 September 1883 Prerau, Austria-Hungary
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| Died | 11 August 1957 (aged 73) Zakopane, Poland
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| Resting place | Rakowicki Cemetery, Kraków, Poland |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Known for | Inventor of vaccine against epidemic typhus |
| Spouse(s) | Zofia Weigl |
| Awards | Righteous Among the Nations (2003) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology |
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Rudolf Stefan Jan Weigl (born September 2, 1883 – died August 11, 1957) was a Polish biologist, doctor, and inventor. He is famous for creating the first working vaccine to fight epidemic typhus. This was a very serious disease. He was suggested for the Nobel Prize in Medicine many times between 1930 and 1939.
During a very difficult time called the Holocaust, Weigl worked hard to save many Jewish lives. He did this by making his typhus vaccine. He also gave shelter and protection to people suffering under the Nazi Germans in Poland. Because of his brave actions, he was honored as a Righteous Among the Nations in 2003.
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Rudolf Weigl's Early Life
Rudolf Weigl was born in Prerau. This town was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire back then. His parents were Austrian. When he was a child, his father died in a bicycle accident. His mother, Elisabeth Kroesel, then married a Polish teacher named Józef Trojnar.
Rudolf grew up in Jasło, Poland. Even though he spoke German first, he learned Polish and became part of the Polish culture.
Later, his family moved to Lviv. In 1907, Weigl finished his studies in biology at Lviv University. He learned from famous professors there. After he graduated, he became an assistant. In 1913, he earned a special qualification called a habilitation. This allowed him to teach at universities and become a professor. He also got his doctorate degrees in zoology, comparative anatomy, and histology.
Fighting Typhus in Wartime
When World War I started in 1914, Weigl joined the medical service of the Austro-Hungarian army. This is when he began to study typhus and what caused it. He worked at a military hospital in Przemyśl. From 1918 to 1920, he was in charge of a lab that studied typhus. In 1919, he joined a health council in the Polish army. As he researched and experimented, he created his vaccine.
After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Weigl kept working at his institute in Lwów. He was able to make more of his typhus vaccine there. For the next four years, he focused on making a vaccine for spotted fever. He led the Institute for Typhus and Virus Research in Lwów. His vaccine for spotted fever did not make people fully immune, but it made their sickness much less severe.
During World War II, the Nazi Germans took over Poland. Weigl's research caught their attention. When they occupied Lwów, they told him to set up a typhus vaccine factory at his institute. Weigl used this chance to hire many Jewish friends and colleagues. He also hired and protected about 2,000 Polish smart people, Jews, and members of the Polish underground resistance.
Many of these people helped him with his typhus research and experiments with lice. His Jewish helpers mainly grew the lice. In return, they received food, protection, and doses of the vaccine when it was ready. His vaccines were secretly taken into Jewish areas called ghettos in Lwów and Warsaw. They also went to concentration camps and even some Gestapo prisons. It is believed that Weigl saved around 5,000 lives during the Nazi rule.
How the Vaccine Was Made
In 1909, a scientist named Charles Nicolle found out that lice spread epidemic typhus. After that, Weigl took the next step. In 1930, he developed a way to make a typhus vaccine. He did this by growing infected lice and then crushing them into a paste. This paste became the vaccine.
He found that a vaccine could be made from the stomachs of lice infected with Rickettsia prowazeki. These are the tiny germs that cause typhus in humans. He made the first version of this vaccine in 1918. He started testing it on guinea pigs and even on people who volunteered. He made his method better over the years. By 1933, he was doing large-scale tests. He grew the germs and experimented with the lice using a special way to infect them.
The process had four main steps:
- Growing healthy lice for about 12 days.
- Injecting the lice with the typhus germs.
- Growing the infected lice for 5 more days.
- Taking out the lice's midguts and grinding them into a paste. This paste was the vaccine.
Growing lice meant feeding them blood. Human blood was best. At first, he tested his method on guinea pigs. But around 1933, he started large-scale testing on humans. These people, called "lice feeders," let the lice suck their blood through a screen. This could make the lice get typhus during the later part of the process. Weigl solved this problem by giving the human "injectees" the vaccine. This protected them from dying, though some did get sick. Rudolf Weigl and his wife Zofia Weigl were some of the first people to be lice feeders. He even got the disease himself but got better.
The first big use of his vaccine was from 1936 to 1943. Belgian missionaries used it in China. Soon, the vaccines were also given in Africa. The vaccine was dangerous to make and hard to produce in large amounts. Over time, other vaccines were created that were safer and cheaper to make. One of these was the Cox vaccine, which was made using egg yolk.
Later Life and Legacy
After the war, the borders of Poland changed. Weigl moved to Kraków in southern Poland. He became the head of the General Microbiology Institute at the Jagiellonian University. Later, he became the head of biology in the medical department at the University of Poznań. He retired in 1951, but his vaccine continued to be made for several more years.
Rudolf Weigl passed away on August 11, 1957, in the Polish mountain town of Zakopane. He was 73 years old. He was buried in the historic Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.
Because of Weigl's important research and work with typhus at Lwów University, the Weigl's Institute was created there.
Awards and Special Recognitions
Rudolf Weigl was suggested for a Nobel Prize many times. This happened every year from 1930 to 1934, and again from 1936 to 1939. Even with these nominations, he never received a Nobel Prize for his vaccine or his social work.
Fifty years after he died, Weigl's research, work, and help were finally recognized by many. In 2003, he was honored as Righteous Among the Nations. This special award was given by Israel. It honored his work for saving countless Jewish lives during World War II.
On September 2, 2021, Google celebrated Weigl’s 138th birthday with a special Google Doodle on their homepage.
See also
In Spanish: Rudolf Weigl para niños
- Louse-feeder
- List of Poles
- Ludwik Fleck
- Ludwik Hirszfeld, microbiologist, Holocaust survivor
