Albert Calmette

Biography

It makes its studies with the colleges of Clermont-Ferrand and Brest, like with the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris. Of 1881 with 1883, he is pupil of the naval Medical school of Brest. In 1883, it starts to exert in the body of doctors of marine with Hong-Kong, where it studies the Malaria, subject of its thesis of doctorate which it supports in 1886. It is then sent to Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon, then it exerts in Western Africa, with the Gabon and the Congo, where it continues to study not only the malaria but also the Maladie of the sleep and the Pellagre.

In 1890, it follows a training course of Bactériologie in the laboratory of the doctor Emile Roux to Paris. Associated in the searches of Louis Pasteur, it is charged by this last with founding the institute of Saigon where it organizes the production of Vaccin S against the Rage. It is devoted to the Toxicologie, which has just been born, in close connection with the Immunologie, and it studies the Venin Serpent S and Abeille S, the Poison S resulting from the plants and the Curare. It also organizes the production of vaccines against the Variole and the rage, and undertakes research on the Choléra and the Fermentation of the Opium and the Riz.

In 1894, it returns to France and develops the first antivenins against the bites of snake by using serums of vaccinated and immunized horses (serum of Calmette). This work is resumed later in Instituto Butantan of São Paulo by the Brazilian doctor Vital Brezil who develops several others antivenins against the snakes, the scorpions and the spiders. Calmette also takes part in the development of the first serum immunisator against the Bubonic plague (the Black Death), in collaboration with Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943), which had discovered its disease-causing agent, Yersinia pestis, and it goes to the Portugal to study an epidemic with Oporto and to help to fight it.

Starting from 1895, it continues other research at the Pasteur Institute of Lille, whose Roux had entrusted the direction to him that it will assume during 25 years. In 1901, it founds there the first antituberculeux dispensary which bears its name today. In 1904, it founds the League of North against the Tuberculosis, which always exists. In 1909, it takes part in the foundation of the antenna of Algiers.

During the First World War, it is named assistant of the director of the department of health of the 1st military region in Lille, but cannot join the city occupied by the German troops. It organizes the auxiliary military hospitals.

In 1917, it is named assistant editor of the Pasteur Institute of Paris. He is elected with the Académie of medicine in 1919 and of the Academy of Science in 1927.

Research on tuberculosis

The principal scientific work of Calmette, that which was to bring a world glory to him and to attach its name to the history of medicine, was the development of a vaccine against the Tuberculose which, at that time, made devastations. In 1882, the German Microbiologiste Robert Koch had discovered that the agent Pathogène of this disease was the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (bacillus of Koch) , discovered which had interested Pasteur.

In 1906, Camille Guerin, Veterinary and immunologist, had established that immunity against tuberculosis was related to Bacille S tuberculous alive in blood. By using the Pasteurian method, Calmette wanted to know if this immunity would develop like answer to the injection, in the animals, of attenuated bovine bacilli. This preparation accepted the name of its two discoverers (Bacillum Calmette-Guerin, or in summary BCG). The attenuation was obtained by cultivating the bacilli in a Substrat containing Bile, according to an idea put forward by a Norwegian researcher , Kristian Feyer Andvord (1855-1934).

To 1908 with 1921, Guerin and Calmette endeavoured to produce less and less virulent stocks of bacilli, thanks to transfers in successive cultures. Lastly, in 1921, they successfully used the BCG on new-born babies with the Hôpital of the Charity of Paris.

The program of vaccination however seemed to know a serious reverse when, in 1930, 72 vaccinated children contracted tuberculosis, with Lübeck. But the investigation proved that the Pasteur Institute had provided healthy stocks and that they was the doctors of Lübeck who had been guilty negligences scandaleuses ; they were condemned besides to imprisonment while the Pasteur Institute was put out of cause. The massive vaccination of the children was reintroduced in much country after 1932 with surer techniques of production. Calmette had not been deeply reached less of it and he died one year later in Paris.

He was the younger brother of Gaston Calmette (1858-1914), editor association of the Figaro of 1903 with 1914, which was assassinated in 1914 by Henriette Caillaux, the wife of the socialist Minister for Finance Joseph Caillaux.

Sources

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