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The three deaf Nobel Laureates

Alfred Bernard Nobel (1833-1896), the Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite, donated a fund of about $ 9.0 million for awarding Nobel Prizes annually to the persons who make significant contributions in any of the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economics. The prizes in the first five fields have been given since 1901. The Economics prize was introduced in 1969.

The winners of Physics, Chemistry and Economics are chosen by the Royal Academy of Science in Stockholm, Physiology or Medicine, by the Caroline Institute and the faculty of medicine in Stockholm. The winners of Literature are selected by the Swedish Academy of Literature in Stockholm. The Peace prize is awarded by a Norwegian Nobel Committee of five elected members from Norwegian Parliament.

The first deaf Nobel laureate was Charles Jules Henry Nicolle (1866-1936), a French bacteriologist who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1928 for identifying lice as a transmitter of epidemic typhus.

Nicolle became deaf at the age of 20 while studying medicine. In 1893, he earned M.D. from the Pasteur Institute, the French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms and vaccines. In 1895, Nicolle married Alice Avice and had two children.

Nicolle became the Director of Pasteur Institute in Tunis, Tunisia in 1903 where he did his Nobel Prize winning work on typhus. In 1936, he died there as the Director. Later Nicolle was honoured on French and Tunisian postage stamps.

The second deaf Nobel laureate was Sir Charles Scott Sherrington (1857-1952), an English physician who shared the Noble Prize in Medicine in 1932 with Edgar D. Adrian (British) for discovering the function of neurons.

Sir Sherrington became deaf late in life. In 1920, he was the President of Royal Society and a member of Order of Merit. He was knighted by the King of England.

The third deaf Nobel laureate was Sir John Warcup Cornforth. Born in Sydney, Australia in 1917 he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1975 with Vladimir Prelog (Swiss) for their work on the chemical synthesis of important organic compounds.

Sir Cornforth had been a profound deaf man since his teens. His mother Hilda Eipper (1887-1969) was the granddaughter of Christopher Eipper (1813-1894), a pioneer missionary and Presbyterian minister in Australia. He earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in 1937 and 1938 respectively from the University of Sydney and D. Phil. in 1941 from the University of Oxford. He is a member of Royal Society and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. He is now 92.

Written by Iftu Ahmed, Aurora, IL, USA