PLAGUE

[ Sir Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine, Russian bacteriologist described by Lister as a saviour of humanity. ] Two Autograph Letters Signed and an Autograph Card Signed (all 'W. M. Haffkine') [ to editor ], regarding his entry in Men of the Times.

Author: 
Sir Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine [ born Vladimir Aaronovich Chavkin ] (1860-1930), Russian bacteriologist described by Joseph Lister as a saviour of humanity
Publication details: 
All on letterheads of the Buckingham Palace Hotel [ London ]. All dating from July 1899.
£450.00

A Ukrainian Jew, Haffkine found his early career obstructed by his refusal to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. He emigrated and worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he developed an anti-cholera vaccine that he tried out successfully in India. He is recognized as the first microbiologist to develop and use vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. He tested the vaccines on himself. The three items in good conditon, lightly aged. ONE: ALS. 2pp., 12mo. He has been 'away from town', but now hopes to send 'a note on my work' within the week. 'It wd.

[Earl of Cromer; Egypt; Cattle Plague] Part only of an Autograph Letter Signed Cromer, with reference to cattle plague (rinderpest) as affecting Egypt and to the Southern Ports (eg Suez). Recipient unknown.

Author: 
Lord Cromer [Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841 – 1917), statesman, diplomat and colonial administrator. Created Baron Cromer in 1892.
Cromer
Publication details: 
Place and date presumably in missing half of the letter. [Post 1892?].
£65.00
Cromer

Text on both sides of the bottom half of an Autograph Letter Signed, 12 x 9cm, a sprawling hurried handwriting. Text; [p.1] [...] due to the death of the [Princess?]. | The cattle plague is a serious business - I do not think we shall be able to do [p.2] bottom half only] about the [occupation?] of the Southern ports [Suez, Port Said?]. There need to be no hurry. The matter can [stand over?] for a while.

[John Haygarth, Chester physician.] Autograph Letter Signed ('J Haygarth.') to William Rathbone IV, discussing the possible establishment of a 'Lazaret' for Liverpool on 'Helbry [i.e. Hilbre] Island', with reference to penal reformer John Howard.

Author: 
John Haygarth (1740-1827), Chester physician and pioneer in the prevention of smallpox [William Rathbone IV (1757-1809), Liverpool merchant and abolitionist; John Howard (1726-1790), prison reformer]
Publication details: 
Chester; 30 June 1789.
£950.00

For the background to this letter see the section on 'Lazarettos and the Plague' in C. C. Booth's 'John Haygarth, FRS (1740-1827): A Physician of the Enlightenment' (2005). The penal reformer John Howard published his 'Account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe' in 1789, and the letter to Howard referred to by Haygarth in the present item was one in which Haygarth set forth his view on the subject, dated 30 May 1789.

Printed Victorian handbill, with engraved illustration by S. Holden, of the 'Old House and "Plague-Stone" in the Wash-Lane, (near Warrington,) Cheshire. ['now in the possession of Dr. Kendrick, Warrington']

Author: 
[Dr. James Kendrick (1809-1882), local historian; the Old House and Plague-Stone" in the Wash-Lane, near Warrington, Cheshire]
Publication details: 
Without place or date [c.1843].
£65.00

1p., 4to. In very good condition, on lightly-aged paper. Engraved illustration of the Old House at the head (signed 'S. Holden'), with an engraving of the Plague-Stone beneath it, followed by the text: 'The Relic represented above formed the corner coping-stone of a garden wall, immediately above the spot indicated in the drawing by the letter A. It is traditional in the neighbourhood that about the middle of the 17th century, (probably in the year 1665,) several cases of The Plague occurred in this house.

Two Autograph Signature on slip of paper.

Author: 
Richard Adams (born 1920), English novelist, best-known for 'Watership Down' (1972)
Publication details: 
Undated and with place not stated.
£30.00

On strip of paper roughly two inches by eight wide. Good. Two bold signature reads 'Yours sincerely | Richard Adams'. Presumably the collector was expected to cut the autographs off individually - for wgatever purpose.

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