Hey there, kiddo! Today is a special day because Google Doodle is celebrating the 138th birthday of Rudolf Weigl, a super cool inventor, doctor, and immunologist from Poland. He’s famous for creating an awesome vaccine and fighting against a really old and yucky disease called typhus. 

Typhus is a really yucky disease that spreads through body lice. These lice carry a bacteria called Rickettsia prowazekii that causes the disease. Throughout history, typhus has made lots of people sick and sadly caused many deaths. It’s a really bad bug!

The Google Doodle for Rudolf Weigl’s birthday shows him holding a test tube in his gloved hands. On one side, there are drawings of lice on the wall, and on the other side, there’s a human body. It’s like a funny science cartoon! The word ‘Google’ in the doodle is drawn using a microscope, test tubes, and other lab equipment. It’s like a science party!

From the doodle, we can tell that Rudolf Weigl was a scientist who worked with lice and studied how they affect the human body. He must have been a genius at using science to help people because the doodle shows him with all those cool laboratory tools.

Celebrating Weigl: Typhus Hero!

• Rudolf Stefan Weigl was born in 1883 in a town called Przerow, which is in the Czech Republic today. He went to Lwow University in Poland and studied biological sciences. That means he learned all about living things and how they work. In 1914, the Polish Army asked him to be a parasitologist, which is a fancy word for someone who studies parasites. He must have been a bug expert!
• Back then, typhus was making lots of people sick in Europe, and Weigl really wanted to stop it. So, he studied the lice that carried the disease and worked hard to create a vaccine. Finally, in 1936, he did it! He made the first-ever vaccine that could effectively protect people from typhus. That’s like a superhero power!

• During World War II, when Germany took over Poland, Weigl was forced to open a vaccine factory. But guess what? He used it to help save Jewish people from the Nazis and the disease! He’s such a sneaky hero, helping around 5,000 people. The world needs more heroes like Rudolf Weigl!

• Rudolf Weigl was a super smart and funny scientist who made an amazing vaccine to fight typhus. Even though he didn’t win the Nobel Prize, he was honored by Israel as a “Righteous Among the Nations.” So, let’s celebrate this awesome inventor and remember that science can be fun and save lives too!