Jamsetji and Haffkine

How did one of India’s foremost industrialists cope with the plague and the (then) new-fangled vaccine discovered by Dr Waldemar Haffkine in the last years of the 19th century? Very enthusiastically, notes biographer Frank Harris in Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata - A Chronicle of His Life. Harris noted that Jamsetji "who at once recognized the value of the new cure,” became one of Haffkine’s "warmest supporters,” even getting himself "inoculated more than once, and was always prepared, if necessary, to submit to a further dose.” Reportedly, the industrialist "studied every book and every pamphlet which he could acquire, bearing upon the various plagues.” Insisting that all his servants should be inoculated, Jamsetji conducted "an exhaustive inquiry as to the effects of inoculation among his fellow Parsis. He spread the gospel of inoculation among his friends.”

Jamsetji Tata (l), "warmest supporter" of Dr Waldemar Haffkine Photos: Wikipedia

Ten days before his son Dorabji’s marriage, Dr Hormusji Bhabha, the father of the bride-to-be Meherbai, arrived in Bombay. He "called upon Jamsetji in the early morning, and found Haffkine busy with the staff of Esplanade House.” Jamsetji insisted that Bhabha should be inoculated, "then and there, before all the rest.” The biographer wrote that Bhabha "did his best to evade such a welcome, but the host appealed to him as an educated man, whose business it was to set an example to others.”