To this pantheon of Jewish miracle workers Schama has brought his considerable literary talents to two more: Élie Metchnikoff, the Ukrainian-born scientist who pioneered the study of immunology, and his star pupil, Waldemar Haffkine. Illustration: Sueddeutsche Zeitung Photo/Alamy Smallpox was responsible for countless deaths in London’s slums in 1871. From August Paul von Wasserman, the German-Jewish bacteriologist who in 1906 discovered a test for syphilis, to Ludwik Fleck, who while imprisoned in Buchenwald developed a vaccine for typhus, to Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, who contemporaneously developed the first polio vaccines, the history of microbiology is full of Jewish scientists whose careers stand as a rebuke to these pandemic prejudices. So, it is perhaps no surprise that Jews have been drawn to microbiology and the allied science of vaccinology. Similarly, when in 1892 Jewish immigrants fleeing pogroms in eastern Europe arrived in Manhattan on ships riddled with typhus, it was they who were quarantined on an island in the East River, not the non-Jewish passengers in the first-class cabins. In the 14th century, rumours that the Black Death was because of Jews poisoning the drinking wells of Christians sparked show trials and executions across southern Germany. Few groups are more aware of the consequences of these calumnies than Jews.
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