Albert Calmette
Albert Calmette in 1930
Born12 July 1863
Nice, France
Died29 October 1933(1933-10-29) (aged 70)
Paris, France
NationalityFrench
Known forBacillus Calmette-Guérin
antivenin
Scientific career
FieldsBacteriology
InstitutionsPasteur Institute

Léon Charles Albert Calmette ForMemRS[1] (12 July 1863 – 29 October 1933) was a French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, and an important officer of the Pasteur Institute. He discovered the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, an attenuated form of Mycobacterium bovis used in the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis. He also developed the first antivenom for snake venom, the Calmette's serum.

Early career

Calmette was born in Nice, France. He wanted to serve in the Navy and be a physician, so in 1881 he joined the School of Naval Physicians at Brest. He started to serve in 1883 in the Naval Medical Corps in Hong Kong, where he worked with Dr Patrick Manson, who studied the mosquito transmission of the parasitic worm, filaria, the cause of elephantiasis. Calmette completed his medical degree on the subject of filariasis.[2] He was then assigned to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, where he arrived in 1887. Afterwards, he served in West Africa, in Gabon and French Congo, where he researched malaria, sleeping sickness and pellagra.

Association with Pasteur

Upon his return to France in 1890, Calmette met Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and Emile Roux (1853–1933), who was his professor in a course on bacteriology. He became an associate and was charged by Pasteur to found and direct a branch of the Pasteur Institute at Saigon (French Indochina), in 1891.[3] There, he dedicated himself to the nascent field of toxicology, which had important connections to immunology, and he studied snake and bee venom, plant poisons and curare. He also organized the production of vaccines against smallpox and rabies and carried out research on cholera, and the fermentation of opium and rice.

In 1894, he came back to France again and develop the first antivenoms for snake bites using immune sera from vaccinated horses (Calmette's serum). Work in this field was later taken up by Brazilian physician Vital Brazil, in São Paulo at the Instituto Butantan, who developed several other antivenoms against snakes, scorpions and spiders.[4]

He also took part in the development in the first immune serum against the bubonic plague (black pest), in collaboration with the discoverer of its pathogenic agent, Yersinia pestis, by Alexandre Yersin (1863–1943), and went to Portugal to study and to help fight a plague epidemic at Oporto in 1899.[4]

Institute leadership

In 1895, Roux entrusted him with the directorship of the Institute's branch at Lille (Institut Pasteur de Lille), where he was to remain for the next 25 years. In 1901, he founded the first antituberculosis dispensary at Lille, and named it after Emile Roux.[4] In 1904, he founded the "Ligue du Nord contre la Tuberculose" (Northern Antituberculosis League), which still exists today.

In 1909, he helped to establish the Institute branch in Algiers (Algeria). In 1918, he accepted the post of assistant director of the Institute in Paris; the following year he was made a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.[4]

Research on tuberculosis

Albert Calmette in 1923

Calmette's main scientific work, which was to bring him worldwide fame and his name permanently attached to the history of medicine was the attempt to develop a vaccine against tuberculosis, which, at the time, was a major cause of death. The German microbiologist Robert Koch had discovered, in 1882, that the tubercle bacillus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was its pathogenic agent, and Louis Pasteur became interested in it too. In 1906, a veterinarian and immunologist, Camille Guérin, had established that immunity against tuberculosis was associated with the living tubercle bacilli in the blood. Using Pasteur's approach, Calmette investigated how immunity would develop in response to attenuated bovine bacilli injected in animals. This preparation received the name of its two discoverers (Bacillum Calmette-Guérin, or BCG, for short). Attenuation was achieved by cultivating them in a bile-containing substrate, based on idea given by a Norwegian researcher, Kristian Feyer Andvord (1855–1934).[5] From 1908 to 1921, Guérin and Calmette strived to produce less and less virulent strains of the bacillus, by transferring them to successive cultures. Finally, in 1921, they used BCG to successfully vaccinate newborn infants in the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris.

The vaccination program, however, suffered a serious setback when 72 vaccinated children developed tuberculosis in 1930, in Lübeck, Germany, due to a contamination of some batches in Germany. Mass vaccination of children was reinstated in many countries after 1932, when new and safer production techniques were implemented. Notwithstanding, Calmette was deeply shaken by the event, dying one year later, in Paris.[4]

Impact on industrial brewing

Calmette helped develop the amylolytic process which was used in industrial brewing.[6]

Personal life

He was the brother of Gaston Calmette (1858–1914), the editor of Le Figaro who was shot and killed in 1914 by Henriette Caillaux.[4] Mme Caillaux was acquitted of murder on the grounds that she had committed a crime of passion.

Legacy

Calmette Bridge
Busts of Calmette and Pasteur inside the Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh City

Today, his name is one of the few remaining French names in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City (others being Yersin, Alexandre de Rhodes, Pasteur). A bridge completed in 2009 is also named "Calmette" connecting district 1 to district 4, also connected to the exit of the new Thu Thiem tunnel connecting the district 1 to the future residential Thu Thiem area in district 2.[7] In Cambodia, a major hospital was named after him, Calmette Hospital.[8]

References

  1. ↑ C. J. M. (1934). "Leon Charles Albert Calmette, 1863-1933". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 1 (3): 315–325. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1934.0015. eISSN 2053-9118. ISSN 1479-571X.
  2. ↑ Siang Yong Tan; Erika Kwok (2012). "Albert Calmette (1863–1933): Originator of the BCG vaccine" (PDF). Singapore Medical Journal. 53 (7): 433–4. PMID 22815009.
  3. ↑ Hawgood, B.J. (1999). "Doctor Albert Calmette 1863-1933: founder of antivenomous serotherapy and of antituberculous BCG vaccination". Toxicon. 37 (9): 1241–58. doi:10.1016/s0041-0101(99)00086-0. ISSN 0041-0101. PMID 10400286.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Sakula, Alex (1983). "BCG: who were Calmette and Guerin?". Thorax. 38 (11): 806–812. doi:10.1136/thx.38.11.806. PMC 459668. PMID 6359561.
  5. ↑ Álvarez Pasquín, María José; César Velasco Muñoz (2018). Vacuna a vacuna 3a edición: Manual de información sobre vacunas on line (in French). Amazing Books. ISBN 978-84-17403-17-1.
  6. ↑ Sasges, Gerard (1 March 2021). "Mold's Dominion: Science, Empire, and Capitalism in a Globalizing World". The American Historical Review. 126 (1): 82–108. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhab008. ISSN 0002-8762.
  7. ↑ Luan, Kinh (22 January 2009). "Calmette Bridge completed". Saigon Times Daily. Archived from the original on 9 July 2021. Retrieved 5 September 2019.
  8. ↑ "Calmette Hospital". Archived from the original on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 5 September 2019.

Bibliography

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  • Calmette, A. (1896). "The Treatment of Animals Poisoned with Snake Venom by the Injection of Antivenomous Serum". BMJ. 2 (1859): 399–400. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.1859.399. PMC 2509956. PMID 20756388.
  • Hawgood, B.J. (August 2007). "Albert Calmette (1863–1933) and Camille Guérin (1872–1961): the C and G of BCG vaccine". Journal of Medical Biography. 15 (3): 139–46. doi:10.1258/j.jmb.2007.06-15. PMID 17641786. S2CID 41880560.
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  • Milleliri, J.M. (2005). "Unpublished letter from Albert Calmette to Marcel Léger. A new mission for China?". Médecine Tropicale (in French). 65 (2): 135. PMID 16038352.
  • Oehme, J. (August 1993). "Albert Calmette (1863–1933)". Kinderkrankenschwester (in German). 12 (8): 288. PMID 8398793.
  • Bendiner, E. (October 1992). "Albert Calmette: a vaccine and its vindication". Hospital Practice. 27 (10A): 113–6, 119–22, 125 passim. PMID 1400676.
  • Fillastre, C. (1986). "Homage to Albert Calmette". Developments in Biological Standardization (in French). 58 (Pt A): 3–7. PMID 3297869.
  • Dodin, A. (1983). "Albert Calmette. President of the Société de Pathologie Exotique" [Albert Calmette. President of the Société de Pathologie Exotique]. Bulletin de la Société de pathologie exotique et de ses filiales (in French). 76 (3): 211–4. PMID 6354491.
  • Birth, C.A. (March 1974). "Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Léon Charles Albert Calmette 1863–1933 Jean-Marie Camille Guérin 1872–1961". The Practitioner. 212 (1269): 391–2. PMID 4614251.
  • Gelinas, J.A. (November 1973). "Albert Calmette. The Saigon years 1891–1893: A historical review". Military Medicine. 138 (11): 730–3. doi:10.1093/milmed/138.11.730. PMID 4201992.
  • Cossairt, J. (1973). "Stamps in radiology (Leon Charles Albert Calmette)". Radiology. 107 (3): 536. doi:10.1148/107.3.536. PMID 4581661.
  • Togunova, A.I. (1971). "Half a century since the development and practical application of live BCG vaccine (Albert Calmette), (Camille Guérin)" [Half a century since the development and practical application of live BCG vaccine (Albert Calmette), (Camille Guérin)]. Problemy Tuberkuleza (in Russian). 49 (4): 1–6. PMID 4944950.
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  • Dujarric De La Riviere, R. (1964). "Eulogy for Charles - Albert Calmette (1863–1933)". Bulletin de l'Académie Nationale de Médecine (in French). 148: 648–55. PMID 14262487.
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