Adolf Hempt
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Dr. Adolf Hempt (1874–1943) is the founder of the Pasteur Institute in Novi Sad, Serbia.
He stabilized Pasteur's vaccine against rabies so that it could be distributed to distant places. His method of producing vaccines were used in all Central European countries, and vaccine against rabies was produced according to his technology until 1989.
Hempt was born in 1874 in Novi Sad (then under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy) as son of a Belgian Protestant missionary. Earned his medical diploma on the University of Graz. He worked for some time as a military medic. During World War I he was a commander of a hospital in Trieste. After that he worked in Bosnia, and in 1921 he returned to Novi Sad accepting the invitation of the Serbian Minister of Health Andrija Štampar. Here he founded a Pasteur Institute and became the first director of the same. The institute was producing Pasteur's vaccine against rabies, and provided information to the people about prevention.
Dr. Hempt published his modifications to the vaccine against rabies in 1925, which was accepted on a medical conference in Paris in 1927. After that the vaccine were produced according his technology all around Europe. This so called inactive or "dead vaccines" were produced in Europe to the end of 80s, and are still used in India and some developing countries.
[edit] How was Hempt's vaccine better?
He used inactive rabies virus, thus reducing side effects and making the vaccine more safe. He also reduced the dosage needed. Pasteur's method lasted fifteen days taking one vaccine each day slowly increasing the dosage. Hempt's inactive vaccine, since it doesn't contain living viruses, could be dosed in only six daily doses. It also was more stable, so could be stored and used on places distant from hospitals.
