Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The fascinating scientific history of phage therapy has been documented in numerous publications.
In this study, however, we focus on an angle of the story that hitherto has remained relatively neglected, namely, phage therapy treatments, and the protagonists that conducted these in Mandatory-Palestine and subsequently the state of Israel, as part of a global trend. We complete the story by describing efforts in the new era of phage therapy in present-day Israel.
The use of bacteriophages as antibacterial therapeutics is a unique scientific and historical story, with ups and downs spanning more than a century. In this review, we aim to tell the forgotten story of the first phage therapy attempts in Mandatory-Palestine, the few applications that were developed in subsequent years, and the current re-emergence and status of phage therapy in Israel. Pieces of evidence relating to phage activity were described as early as , when Hankin observed bactericidal action in the Ganges and Jumna rivers of India.
In , d'Herelle applied phage for the treatment of patients suffering from cholera in India's Punjab region, thereby reducing mortality rates, 5 and in the early s, phages were applied in the United States for a wide range of indications, including dermal and ophthalmological cases.
Several factors documented in the history of medicine in British-ruled Mandatory-Palestine, particularly phage therapy, make interesting reading. And, third, the transition from an Eastern European-oriented society to one more conspicuously pro-Western. During the onset of Mandatory-Palestine in , the number of Jewish physicians who practiced medicine in the country was During the initial years of its existence, this department focused primarily on malaria, the environmental and nutritional aspects of infections, and the etiology and epidemiology of leishmaniasis, dengue fever, and intestinal infections.
