Joseph Lennox Donation Pawan | |
|---|---|
 Dr. Pawan's passport photo, provided by the Greenhalls Trust-WI | |
| Born | 6 September 1887 Trinidad |
| Died | 3 November 1957 (age 70) |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh, Pasteur Institute |
| Known for | Proving Mammal-to-Mammal Rabies propagation |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biotechnology |
Joseph Lennox Donation PawanMBE (6 September 1887 – 3 November 1957) was aTrinidadianbacteriologist who was the first person to show thatrabies could be spread byvampire bats to other animals and humans.
Born inTrinidad, Pawan was educated atSaint Mary's College inPort of Spain and won an Island Scholarship in 1907. He then went on to theUniversity of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1912 with bachelor's degrees in medicine and surgery. After studying at thePasteur Institute inFrance 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 inTobago andCedros, in southwestern Trinidad.
In 1923 he was appointed as the solebacteriologist to the government ofTrinidad and Tobago. In 1925 there was an outbreak of rabies in cattle in Trinidad, which was first diagnosed asbotulism. Humans began contracting rabies in 1929, first diagnosed aspoliomyelitis. The outbreak continued until 1937, by which time 89 human fatalities were recorded.[1]
Pawan found the first infected vampire bat in March 1932. He then soon proved that various species of bat, includingfruit-eating bats and particularly thecommon 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 genusArtibeus 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.[2][3]
Pawan died on 3 November 1957.[4] He was sometimes referred to as John Lennox Pawan by Arthur Greenhall, who was a close friend and associate.[5] It is not certain whether he was ever called "John," or whether the references are misprints.
Dr Pawan’s interests were many and varied. He was the author of numerous papers and studied such subjects as the water supplies of Trinidad; the histology ofAedes and Anophole (sic =Anopheles) mosquitos;sickle-cell anaemia; and the mosquito transmission ofVenezuelan Equine Encephalomeyelitis Virus in Trinidad. But he will best be remembered in the annals of medical history along withLouis Pasteur for his contributions to the study of rabies. His research on bat rabies has been considered by rabies investigators over the world to be a classic ofepidemiological studies and has had a profound influence on all subsequent studies up to the present time.[6]