Thursday, June 18, 2009

Meandering we go . . .

Today is the birthday of Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (June 18, 1845 – May 18, 1922), physician, pathologist, and parasitologist.

In 1880, while working in the military hospital in Constantine, Algeria, he discovered that the cause of malaria is a protozoan, the first time that protozoa were shown to be a cause of disease.

In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering that malaria was caused by a protozoan that infects red blood cells.

Alphonse Laveran established the Laboratory of Tropical Diseases at the Pasteur Institute in 1907 and founded the Société de Pathologie Exotique in 1908.

"The life of Laveran was altogether one of labour. His story is tied up with that of his work. Those among us whom he honoured with his friendship know that underneath an exterior a little reserved and distant, he concealed a great sensitivity of heart. He had the character of an inflexible correctness, speech slow and meditated, and always with well-chosen words which never came with any solemn gestures. His countenance, his clear gaze, reflected the serenity and the honesty of his intellect. He surrounded his researches with a discreet silence, just until the moment when he decided to publish them.

Journalists knocked vainly at his doors, for he never gave interviews. Thus, the public hardly knew him, not that he cared for it much.

He suffered for a long time the indifference, the hostility or the scorn with which his discoveries were greeted. The ignorance and the ingratitude of military chiefs who obstinately barred his access to higher ranks in the army was for him especially hard. Nevertheless, he had his revenge, and how glorious! The Pasteur Institute offered him a laboratory, the Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society in London, all the scientific associations of the world rushed to receive him, and honour him. The Caroline Institute bestowed upon him the Nobel Prize and the Academy of Medicine wished him to become the President of its centenary.

Scientists of the future will pay even greater homage to his memory because his work will appear more splendid and more fertile with the hindsight gained over centuries."
- Albert Calmette

Laveran image source (1)

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