Уолтер Роберт Хадвен: Өмірі мен қызметі

English doctor (1854–1932)

Walter Robert Hadwen (3 August 1854 – 27 December 1932) was an English general practitioner, pharmaceutical chemist and writer. He was president of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) and an anti vaccination campaigner, known for his denial of the germ theory of disease.

Walter Robert Hadwen was born in Woolwich on 3 August 1854. He began his career as a pharmacist in Highbridge, Somerset, then subsequently trained as a doctor at Bristol University. After qualifying, he moved to Gloucester in 1896. Hadwen was recruited as a member of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection by its founder and then president Frances Power Cobbe who hired a private investigator to assess his credentials (he was a vegetarian and total abstainer, had a reputation as a "firebrand" orator and was held in "high local esteem"). She subsequently selected him as her successor. He later became a member of the Plymouth Brethren and married Alice Harral in 1878; they had three children. Hadwen was a frequent speaker for the National Anti Vaccination League. He was also a member of the London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial (founded in 1896). Hadwen stated that the "modern germ theory is all bosh". Hadwen was active in general practice until he died from a severe heart attack in 1932, age 78. In his honour the Dr Hadwen Trust was founded in 1970 to fund exclusive non animal techniques to replace animal experiments. He was acquitted of all charges.