Adler, Saul

Saul Aaron Adler was born in 1895 ^{[1] [2]} (according to the "Biographical Dictionary of the First Generation of Professors of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem", 1896 ^[3] ) in the Korelichi of the Grodno province. Saul was the eldest of nine children born in the family. His father, Sinai, studied at yeshivas and received homosexuality , but did not practice as a rabbi , instead holding a shop. In 1900, his father left Russia and moved to the UK, where he settled in Leeds and opened wholesale trade; a few months later his wife followed with her eldest son and daughter ^{[4] [5]} .

After graduating from high school in Leeds, in 1912 Adler entered Leeds University . At school, he made significant progress in mathematics and planned to devote a career to it, but received a scholarship to study medicine and until 1917 he studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Leeds. The number theory remained for Adler a hobby for life, and even as an amateur he made serious progress in it, in particular, proposing a new proof of Fermat's Little Theorem . In the field of medicine, pathologist professor Matthew Stewart had the most significant influence on young Adler ^[6] .

In 1916, Adler secretly married Sophie (Zipore ^[7] ) Hudsen, a Jewish woman from Manchester who later became a nurse; the official marriage ceremony took place only in 1924 in the Lida synagogue ^[8] . Having received a medical license, Adler immediately enrolled in an officer course in the British Army Medical Service and was sent to Mesopotamia , where he served until 1920 (including as a surgeon with a heavy artillery brigade ^[9] ). After his dismissal, he returned to England and was admitted to the ^[10] , in 1921 he received a degree in tropical medicine ^[8] .

In 1921-1924, Adler was engaged in research in Sierra Leone in the Alfred Lewis Jones Laboratory under the supervision of Professor Donald Blacklock ^[10] . Already in 1923, he was invited by Chaim Weizmann to join the staff of the newly opened Hebrew University in Jerusalem and accepted this invitation in April next year. Adler arrived in Palestine with his wife. There, in December 1924, their firstborn was born, Jonathan, in the future also a medical scientist, professor of physiology. Two more children, Judit and Asher, were born in 1928 and 1930, respectively ^[11] .

Starting work at Hebrew University as an assistant in the Department of Microbiology, in 1928 Adler became an assistant professor of parasitology , and a year later - a professor. In 1932, he was offered a place with a significantly higher salary at the Medical Council of London, and he was only able to be kept in Jerusalem thanks to the intervention of philanthropist , who, with the help of the Committee of Jewish Doctors, made up for the difference in salaries. In 1944, even before the official formation of the medical faculty of the Hebrew University, Adler was appointed its chairman. Subsequently, he served as director of the department of parasitology and dean of the faculty; at the last he remained until his retirement in 1965 ^[12] . Along with his work at the university, he was a member of the Council of the Israeli Prime Minister for Science ^[7] . In 1964, he was elected to the WHO Advisory Committee and Medical Research Council ^[9] . Adler often acted as a guest lecturer in different countries. As a polyglot , he was fluent in English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as Hebrew and Yiddish, to lecture in Rome, Paris, London, Brazil, and Israel in languages ​​native to the audience ^[13] .

Professor Adler died in Jerusalem in January 1966 and was buried in Har HaMenuhot Cemetery. ^[14] His wife survived him for 15 years ^[8] .

Early in his scientific career in Sierra Leone, Adler worked with Dr. Thomas Southwell on a variety of diseases in tropical animals. Among the topics of his research during these years were helminthiases in animals, malarial parasites in chimpanzees and reptiles, and Isospora coccidia in civet ^[15] .

Shortly after moving to Palestine, Adler took up the topic, which he somehow continued to study throughout his further scientific career - Leishmania and the diseases caused by them. Already in 1925, he recorded an experimental infection of the subject with cutaneous leishmaniasis using the tissues of the mosquito Phlebotomus papatasii - this experiment was further successfully repeated by other researchers. This and subsequent experiments confirmed the role of P. papatasii as a carrier of leishmaniasis. Subsequently, Adler was also able to prove the transfer of cutaneous leishmaniasis by P. sergenti , P. perniciosus, and P. major species ^[16] .

In 1931-1934, on behalf of the Commission of the Royal Society for the Study of Cala Azar (Visceral Leishmaniasis), Adler prepared a series of ten reports covering the epidemiology of this disease, its varieties, a description of the parasite Leishmania infantum , an analysis of the spread of mosquito carriers of the disease, and a description of a number of experiments . Along with leishmania during this period, Adler studied trypanosomes , noting the similarity in the ways of infection with these parasitic organisms. In the mid-1950s, his focus shifted from Old World Leishmaniasis to American disease; at this time, he and L. Half were studying the species L. entriettii ^[17] .

Since the mid-1930s, Adler has been dealing with the infection of cattle with the parasite- apical complex Theileria annulata . During this period, about 35% of cows imported to Palestine died from this parasite, while local, less highly dairy cattle suffered much less. Adler has developed a method for the preimmunization of imported livestock, as a result of which its mortality has decreased to 3% ^[18] . Adler's work made a key contribution to the successful development of dairy farming in Palestine, and then in independent Israel ^[9] .

In 1936, Adler, Theodor and Schieber proved that the tick of Ornithodorus papillipes , which carries the spirocheta Spirochaeta sogdianum with a bite into a person’s blood, proved to be the carrier of relapsing fever in Palestine. They also succeeded in demonstrating, with Spirochaeta persica, the differences between typhoid fever transmitted by ticks and lice ^[19] . With various co-authors, Adler spent a long time researching malarial plasmodiums, in particular, reporting the discovery of the first species that affects mice and rats, Plasmodium berghei , and later demonstrating the transmission of antibodies to experimental mice with mother’s milk ^[20] .

At different stages of his career, Adler contributed to the development of various types of control of parasitic diseases, including chemotherapy and serology ^[21] . Adler's work as a parasitologist forced him to conduct entomological research as well. So, in the years of work in the Middle East, he published a detailed diagnostic analysis of a number of phlebotomus species - including P. palestinensis , which he first described in collaboration with O. Theodore. In 1945, he also prepared an exhaustive review of mosquitoes in Cyprus, including that described by him and Theodore in 1927, Phlebotomus parroti . During the prevention of theileriosis in cows, Adler studied in detail ticks of the genus Hyalomma , identifying six different species ^[22] .

Fluency in several languages ​​allowed Adler to also act as a translator of scientific and literary texts. In particular, he translated into Darwin the book “ The Origin of Species ” by Darwin ; in the process of translation, Adler had to invent new words for translating terms that did not exist in archaic Hebrew - in particular, it turned out that in this language there is no adequate translation of the English concept of “sex” ^[13] .

In 1946, Saul Adler was promoted to officer of the Order of the British Empire ^[23] . In 1957, his merits were marked by admission to the Royal Society of London (where he became the first Israeli) and the award of the Israel Prize in the field of medicine ^[12] .

Among other awards and titles of Adler ^[24] :

• Chalmer Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (UK, 1933)
• Laveran Medal of the French Society of Exotic Pathology (1933)
• Chaim Weizmann Prize (1949)
• Chernikhovsky Literary Prize (1962, for the translation of Darwin's Origin of Species)
• Honorary Doctor of Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1964) and Leeds University (1965)
• Solomon Bagel Prize from Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1966, posthumous)

In 1994, in memory of Shaul Adler, Israel Post issued a stamp with his portrait ^[25] .

• David Tidhar. Professor Shaul Aaron Adler // Encyclopedia of pioneers and builders of Yishuv = אנציקלופדיה לחלוצי הישוב ובוניו. - 1955. - T. 6. - S. 2464-2465.
• HE Shortt . Saul Adler 1895-1966 // Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. - 1967. - Vol. 13. - P. 1—34.
• Eva Telkes. Biographical Dictionary of the First Generation of Professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem // Bulletin du Center de recherche français à Jérusalem. - 1998. - Vol. 2. - P. 115-125.