Hélène Sparrow
| Hélène Sparrow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
5 June 1891 Kiev, Ukraine |
| Died | 13 November 1970 (aged 79) Pietranera, Corsica, France |
| Other names | Hélène Sparrow-Germa |
| Nationality | Polish, Russian, French |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Problèmes de la vaccination contre le typhus exanthématique (The problems of vaccinations against typhus exanthematique) (1928) |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse |
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Hélène Sparrow (5 June 1891 – 13 November 1970) was a pioneer in world public health, a medical doctor and microbiologist. She was noted for her work to control typhus in Poland after the First World War and then leading national programmes of vaccination against diphtheria, scarlet fever, spotted fever and relapsing fever in Poland and Tunisia into the 1960s.
Sparrow was born in Bohuslav in the province of Kiev (Russia at that time) on 5 June 1891 to Polish parents. Her parents married in 1890. Her mother was X. Stefanska (b. c 1870) and her father Leopold Sparrow (born c. 1860) was a magistrate. She was educated at the Faculty of Medicine in Kiev, obtaining a medical diploma (cum laude) in 1915. She obtained a second degree in medicine from University of Poznan in 1923. She obtained her doctorate in 1928 from the University of Warsaw.
In 1915 she became involved in control of epidemic disease within the Russian army during the First World War. Once fighting ended, she began working in clinics in Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia), supervised by Professor Bylina, soon moving to the Institute of Bacteriology in Kiev as assistant to Wolodymyr Lindeman. She began to work on epidemic typhus with Oleksii Krontovski and L. Polev. In 1920 she went to Warsaw to work with Dr Ludwik Rajchman, the Director of the State Institute of Hygiene. In 1922 she was appointed Chief of Service and then in 1928 became the Chief of the Preventative Vaccinations Service. This included organising vaccination campaigns and also investigation of cholera outbreaks. She obtained a second medical degree from University of Poznan in 1923. Between 1921 and 1933 she also worked with Rudolf Weigl at the University of Lwów on epidemic typhus. During this time she was involved in setting up four public health laboratories in eastern Poland to benefit people relocated following national boundary changes as well as supervising large-scale programmes of vaccination against diphtheria and scarlet fever in the Warsaw region, supported by Robert Debré.
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