Joseph Lennox Pawan

Joseph Lennox Donation Pawan
Dr. Pawan's passport photo, provided by the Greenhalls Trust-WI
Born	6 September 1887
Died	3 November 1957
Nationality	Trinidadian
Fields	Biotechnology
Alma mater	Edinburgh University, Pasteur Institute
Known for	Proving Mammal-to-Mammal Rabies propagation

Joseph Lennox Donation Pawan M.B.E. (6 September 1887 – 3 November 1957) was a Trinidadian bacteriologist who was the first person to show that rabies could be spread by vampire bats to other animals and humans.

Born in Trinidad, Pawan was educated at St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain and won an Island Scholarship in 1907. He then went on to Edinburgh University, where he graduated in 1912 with bachelor's degrees in medicine and surgery. After studying at the Pasteur Institute in France he returned to Trinidad in 1913, first as an Assistant Surgeon at the Colonial Hospital in Port of Spain, and later as the District Medical Officer in Tobago and Cedros, in southwestern Trinidad.

In 1923 he was appointed as the sole bacteriologist to the government of Trinidad and Tobago. In 1925 there was an outbreak of rabies in cattle in Trinidad, which was first diagnosed as botulism. Humans began contracting rabies in 1929, first diagnosed as poliomyelitis. The outbreak continued until 1937, by which time 89 human fatalities were recorded.

Pawan found the first infected vampire bat in March 1932. He then soon proved that various species of bat, including fruit-eating bats and particularly the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus), with or without artificial infection or the external symptoms of rabies, are capable of transmitting rabies for an extended period of time. “Perhaps, the most heretical disclosure was that vampire bats could recover from the furious stage of the disease and were capable of spreading the disease up to five and one half months.” It was later shown that fruit bats of the Artibeus genus demonstrate the same abilities. During this asymptomatic stage the bats continue to behave normally and breed. At first, his basic findings that bats transmitted rabies to people and animals were thought fantastic and ridiculed.