Albert Calmette

Albert Calmette
Albert Calmette
Born	July 12, 1863(1863-07-12) Nice, France
Died	October 29, 1933 (aged 70) Paris
Nationality	France
Fields	bacteriologist
Institutions	Pasteur Institute
Known for	Bacillus Calmette-Guérin antivenin

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Léon Charles Albert Calmette (July 12, 1863 – October 29, 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 used in the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis. He also developed the first antivenin for snake venom, the Calmette's serum.

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 studied malaria and got his doctoral degree in 1886 on this subject. He was then assigned to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, where he arrived in 1887. After, he served in West Africa, in Gabon and French Congo, where he researched malaria, sleeping sickness and pellagra.

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. 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.

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 an epidemic at Oporto.

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. In 1904, he founded the "Ligue du Nord contre la Tuberculose" (Northern Antituberculosis League), which exists until 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.

Research on tuberculosis

Institut Pasteur de Lille

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 giant killer disease. 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). 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 vaccine newborn infants in the 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.

He was the brother of Gaston Calmette (1858-1914), the editor of Le Figaro who was murdered in 1914 by Henriette Caillaux, socialite wife of Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux.

References

• Nègre, Noël; Léopold (1939). Albert Calmette, sa vie, son oeuvre scientifique. Paris: Masson et Cie. OCLC 23392606. 
• Calmette, A. (1896). "The Treatment of Animals Poisoned with Snake Venom by the Injection of Antivenomous Serum". BMJ 2: 399. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.1859.399. 
• Hawgood BJ (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. http://jmb.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/15/3/139. 
• Daniel TM (September 2005). "Leon Charles Albert Calmette and BCG vaccine". The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease 9 (9): 944–5. PMID 16158885. http://openurl.ingenta.com/content/nlm?genre=article&issn=1027-3719&volume=9&issue=9&spage=944&aulast=Daniel. 
• Milleliri JM (2005). "[Unpublished letter from Albert Calmette to Marcel Léger. A new mission for China?]" (in French). Médecine Tropicale 65 (2): 135. PMID 16038352. 
• Hawgood BJ (September 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. PMID 10400286. 
• Oehme J (August 1993). "[Albert Calmette (1863-1933)]" (in German). Kinderkrankenschwester 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]" (in French). Developments in Biological Standardization 58 ( Pt A): 3–7. PMID 3297869. 
• Dodin A (1983). "[Albert Calmette. President of the Société de Pathologie Exotique]" (in French). Bulletin de la Société de pathologie exotique et de ses filiales 76 (3): 211–4. PMID 6354491. 
• Birth CA (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 JA (November 1973). "Albert Calmette. The Saigon years 1891-1893: A historical review". Military Medicine 138 (11): 730–3. PMID 4201992. 
• Cossairt J (June 1973). "Stamps in radiology (Leon Charles Albert Calmette)". Radiology 107 (3): 536. PMID 4581661. 
• Togunova AI (1971). "[Half a century since the development and practical application of live BCG vaccine (Albert Calmette), (Camille Guérin)]" (in Russian). Problemy Tuberkuleza 49 (4): 1–6. PMID 4944950. 
• Deschiens R (1966). "[Homage to Madame Albert Calmette]" (in French). Bulletin de la Société de pathologie exotique et de ses filiales 59 (6): 933–6. PMID 4868558. 
• DUJARRICDELARIVIERE R (1964). "[EULOGY FOR CHARLES-ALBERT CALMETTE (1863-1933)]" (in French). Bulletin de l'Académie Nationale de Médecine 148: 648–55. PMID 14262487. 
• ROCCHIETTA S (October 1964). "[ALBERT CALMETTE (1863-1933)]" (in Italian). Minerva Medica 55: 1432–4. PMID 14225467. 
• ""NO TRUCE FOR TUBERCULOSIS". 4. THE BIRTH OF BCG. ALBERT CALMETTE AND CAMILLE GUERIN". Indian Journal of Medical Sciences 18: 418–9. July 1964. PMID 14179613. 
• TOGUNOVA AI (1964). "[THE LIFE AND WORK OF ALBERT CALMETTE]" (in Russian). Vestnik Akademii Meditsinskikh Nauk SSSR 19: 69–74. PMID 14255874. 
• "[CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF ALBERT CALMETTE (1863-1933)]" (in French). Semaine Des Hôpitaux: Informations 42: 5–7. November 1963. PMID 14095595. 
• LUGOSI L (November 1963). "[ALBERT CALMETTE AND CAMILLE GUERIN]" (in Hungarian). Gyermekgyógyászat 14: 321–2. PMID 14097501. 
• VANBENEDEN J (November 1963). "[ALBERT CALMETTE. AN EXCITING AND PRODUCTIVE CAREER]" (in French). Revue Médicale de Liège 18: 669–74. PMID 14095568. 
• DE ASSIS A (July 1963). "[ALBERT CALMETTE. (APROPOS OF THEFIRST CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH)]" (in Portuguese). Hospital 64: 1–11. PMID 14048912. 

External links

• León Charles Albert Calmette. WhoNamedIt site.
• Albert Calmette (1863-1933). Repéres Chronologiques. Institut Pasteur, Paris (In French).