Bernard Halpern

Bernard Halpern is a Immunologiste and Allergologue born with Tarnoruda (Ukraine) in 1904 and died in 1978.

Biography

Resulting from an Jewish family of eight children, off-set by the Tsar, with his family in Siberia, 1905, like much from Jewish families, it returns after the revolution to Ukraine, to leave this one in 1920 definitively when its village is attacked by a band of Cosaque S. In a train of German prisoners, it only joined at 16 years the Poland, where it will complete his secondary studies, living lessons given to his/her young friends. It comes finally to France in 1926, at 22 years, to start studies of medicine, initially with Nancy then with Paris in 1928. He works in parallel in the laboratory of experimental biology of the professor Gautrelet at the medical college of Paris. Entered laboratory assistant, it quickly becomes one of the principal collaborators of the Master.

Doctor of medicine in 1936, shining erudite clinician and shining, it was intended, or predestined one would say, with an academic career within the university. Alas, the medical college closes its doors to him, because of an inhospitable regulation which requires five years of residence after naturalization. It thus turns to industry and begins its career in the research laboratories from the Rhône-Poulenc company. Its work leads it to study the role of the drugs antihistamines in the treatment of various forms of allergy. It is the time of the beginnings of pharmacology and the drug company, some time after German chemistry synthesized in 1932 the first drugs, the sulphamides. It is one time when French pharmacology is with most, with in particular the discoveries of the antihistamines by Daniel Bovet, then with the Institut Pasteur with Paris.

It is the time when Fleming discovers in London antibiotics and where Florey and its collaborators of Oxford gives a medical direction to the fundamental discovery of Fleming. During this bubbling time, at the beginning of the therapeutic era, Bernard Halpern is a major actor and contributes largely to successes of the Rhône-Poulenc company and the place of France in this incipient competition. Bernard Halpern must as for him leave Paris in 1940 and take refuge in southern zone where he exerts the general medicine in a village of Ardeche, until the legislation of Vichy prohibits to him.

He again finds refuge in the laboratories of Rhône-Poulenc, lately installed in Lyon in free zone. In these circumstances however tragic, it shows in 1942 the anti-allergic utility of the Antergan then Phénergan, the first Antihistaminique S used in human private clinic. This discovery draws the attention of the German authorities because these drugs also make it possible to prolong the lifespan of the pockets of blood transfusion. He arrives in time to take refuge in Switzerland with his wife and his children.

Its career post-war period is marked several stages. Research director with CNRS in 1948, then directing of studies to the Practical School of the High Studies, it is elected in 1961 with the pulpit of experimental Medicine, occupied previously by François Magendie, Claude Bernard, Charles Nicole and Rene Leriche. Its clinical activity and its research tasks proceed then at the Broussais hospital, where it accommodates in its service of private clinic of the allergic diseases of the pupils of the whole world and diversifies its research tasks. Among his collaborator close relations, one can mention Alain Zweibaum, Guido Biozzi and Baruj Benacerraf, future Nobel Prize, which will turn over to the the United States after having spent eight years in Bernard Halpern. He is elected member of the Académie of medicine and the Academy of Science.

Throughout his life, Bernard Halpern dedicated a worship particular to Claude Bernard, because it knew that medicine and physiology are indissociable and that their investigation must follow the experimental method. In its multiple careers, industrial, academic, scientific, medical, Bernard Halpern could combine extraordinary intellectual qualities with a patience and a generosity out of the commun run. Always, its work had as an main objective to relieve the human sufferings. In spite of the historical dramas of which he was the witness and the victim, since persecutions tsarists until the occupation Nazi, he never separates his scientific and medical ideal, and of a deep humanism. Its route had returned being wary it with regard to the ideologies and sensitive to the ideas of freedom, and he became the friend of Raymond Aron.

At the time of its disappearance in 1978, the France lost a great mind which had offered to him an admirable life of scientist and doctor.

Price and distinctions

----

Random links:Georges Palante | Joseph McCarthy | Kevin Young | Lacan district | Sophie Mounicot | Salle_de_Susan