[Professor Dr Rudolf Weigl (1883-1957) and the activity of his typhus institute in Lvov between 1939 and 1944].

Rudolf Weigl started his study on typhus fever still in time of the Ist World War, and developed them in 1920 as the member of Military Sanitary committee. The study has been carried out for all period of 20 years between the world Wars. As the greatest achievement of Weigl in field of microbiology there should be recognized the use for the first time a bacterial culture in a living organism, and then production of efficient typhus fever vaccine. Of great importance there was a production of vaccine for succeeding armies occupying Lvov; Soviet and German. Weigl's Institute was a harbour for numerous crowds of educated Poles, who--thanks to being employed at the institute--were protected against repressive measures from German invader. Occasionally the institut was supplying also Polish population with vaccines.