A teacher is always pleased when his student surpasses him. The French scientist Louis Pasteur was proud of his pupil Nikolai Fyodorovich Gamaleya. At the end of the 19th century, Gamaleya, our compatriot, was one of the leading specialists in world medicine. Born in Odessa in 1859, he graduated from the military medical academy in the capital. As one of the best graduates, he had the opportunity to intern with Pasteur, where he actively participated in the development of the rabies vaccine and studied the method of its production.

Returning to Odessa with new knowledge, Nikolai Fyodorovich opened the second bacteriological station in the world. He began vaccinating people against rabies, which led to a reduction in mortality from this disease to 0.6%, a record figure for that time. Gamaleya did not forget his teacher, and when English doctors criticized Pasteur, he personally went to London to prove the vaccine's effectiveness and the subjectivity of the criticism.

Later, Gamaleya studied the plague, related to ship rats, believing them to be the culprits of the disease's spread. He became a true savior for Odessa, conducting a complete deratization during the epidemic, which led to its decline within two weeks. His scientific and public activities did not stop there.

In the early 20th century, the scientist researched the ways cholera spreads, establishing that the disease is transmitted through contaminated water, and proved that the vibrio can survive in rivers even in winter. He proposed banning the discharge of sewage into rivers, but officials deemed this suggestion absurd, although time showed that Gamaleya was right. Nikolai Fyodorovich also studied the role of hyaluronic acid in tissue regeneration and developed a theory of the viral nature of oncological formations.