Achmad Mochtar
Achmad Mochtar (born November 10, 1890 in West Sumatra , † July 3, 1945 ) was an Indonesian molecular biologist .
biography
Mochtar graduated from STOVIA in 1916 and then did a two-year internship at a clinic in Panyabungan in North Sumatra . There he came into contact with the German tropical doctor Wilhelm Schüffner , who was researching the malaria pathogen and who became Mochtar's mentor.
Through the possible placement of Schüffner with the Dutch colonial administration, Mochtar was then able to study medicine at the University of Amsterdam . His thesis that leptospirosis causes yellow fever was reinforced by the work of Hideyo Noguchi , a Japanese microbiologist. It was not until 1927 that the opposite was gradually proven.
After studying in Europe, Mochtar returned to Indonesia and continued to work on leptospirosis in the Geneeskundig Laboratorium in Weltevreden (a suburb of Batavia), which had become world famous thanks to its first director Christiaan Eijkman .
Four years later, the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies and interned all of the Dutch colonial administration staff. The laboratory Mochtar was working on was headed at the time by Willem Karel Mertens , who died of beriberi . As a result of this, Mochtar became the new head of the laboratory and continued to work with the remaining Indonesian employees.
In October 1944, the Japanese military police arrested Mochtar, who was accused of circulating a contaminated vaccine. To avoid torture, Mochtar admitted the crime he was accused of. This confession was a death sentence for Mochtar. He was beheaded on July 3, 1945.
J. Kevin Baird and the future director of the institute, Sangkot Marzuki, compiled evidence of Mochtar's innocence and organized a memorial service in July 2010. They see the Japanese occupying forces as guilty of the vaccination victims, possibly as a result of an experiment that got out of hand. According to Iris Heidebrink from the National Archives The Hague, it is well documented that Mochtar was to be made a scapegoat at the time.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mochtar, Achmad |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indonesian molecular biologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 10, 1890 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | West Sumatra |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 3, 1945 |