Medical find put Batavia on the map

By Ida Indawati Khouw

The following is the 43rd in a series on protected buildings and sites appearing in Saturday editions of The Jakarta Post. This week's report highlights two buildings that played significant roles in the country's medical development, the central figure of which is Dutch doctor Christiaan Eijkman, who discovered vitamin B1 deficiency.

JAKARTA (JP): The capital's former name, Batavia, was once widely recognized by the medical establishment following the remarkable discovery of vitamin B1 by Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman.

In recognition of his finding, upon which modern concepts of vitamins are based, Eijkman (others name him Eykman) was awarded the Nobel prize in 1929.

The great revelation proved that Batavia was not an old- fashioned town at the time.

In the 1920s, ancient Jakarta was already home to two research laboratories -- Centraal Geneeskundig Laboratorium (The Central Medical Laboratory) and Het Koningin Wilhelmina Instituut voor Hygiene en Bacteriologie (The Queen Wilhelmina Institute for Hygienics and Bacteriology).

After having many kinds of uses throughout the years, the buildings today house Lembaga Biologi Molekuler Eijkman (Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology), located on Jl. Diponegoro, and Laboratorium Mikrobiologi Universitas Indonesia (Microbiology Laboratory of the University of Indonesia), on Jl. Cikini, both in Central Jakarta.

The second building has been classified as protected, but the status of the Eijkman Institute remains unclear.

Eijkman himself never worked at there. The building was named after the Nobel laureate and was uses for medical research which was initially developed by Eijkman.

The Dutch neurologogy expert arrived in Batavia in 1886 as a military physician. He worked with a team to study the serious and often fatal neurological disorder called beriberi disease, characterized by edema, pareses developing into paralysis and complicated by congestic heart failure which often lead death.

Beriberi was frequently seen in the Dutch East Indies (old Indonesia) especially by those living in crowded buildings, such as the military, prisoners and psychiatric patients, says a book titled Christiaan Eijkman Physician, Utrecht University Professor and Nobel Laureate published by Utrecht University.

Eijkman continued his research here, even though members of his team returned to the Netherlands two years later.

The physician became the first director of the research laboratory for pathology and bacteriology at the military hospital in the Weltevreden area (currently Gatot Subroto Military Hospital on Jl. Abdul Rahman Saleh in Central Jakarta).

The research laboratory at the military hospital was established due the vast spread of the beriberi epidemic at the time.

In his 1890 research on chicken, feeding them with rice without husks, Eijkman concluded that the husks of the rice contained thiamine (vitamin B1). Thiamine deficiency cause beriberi.

"All kinds of tests were made to find the cause of those epizootic but without success. Later, attention was drawn to the fact that the sickness began a month after the chickens were fed with cooked rice from the military hospital," L.S.A.M. von Roemer said in his book Historical Sketches, an Introduction to the Fourth Congress of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine.

The discovery was such a breakthrough that it formed the basic concepts of modern vitamins, a paper on the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology said.

The laboratory where Eijkman made the discovery grew so fast that it became too small to accommodate the number of scientific researchers.

In 1916, the laboratory moved to a vast complex on Jl. Diponegoro, the same location as Centrale Burgelijke Ziekeninrichting (popularly known as CBZ, the Central Civil Hospital, presently Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital) and the medical college of Geneeskundige Hoogeschool now on Jl. Salemba.

The research laboratory was then renamed the Central Medical Laboratory, and later, at its 50th birthday, the Eijkman Institute to respect the noted Dutch scientist.

The institute was the most prestigious and internationally acclaimed research institution ever established in Indonesia and was visited by many big names in the scientific community, such as Robert Koch, the discoverer of tuberculosis bacteria, who was there place during a sabbatical, according to executive manager of the Eijkman Institute Herawati Sudoyo.

The institute played a major role during epidemics of tropical diseases such as cholera, dysentery and malaria in the 19th century in the shabby and crowded town of Batavia.

"The institute has contributed so much to tropical medicine. The E Coli test to check water contamination by human feces, for instance, was called Eijkman test in the past," Herawati said.

People at that time paid such little attention to hygiene that diseases caused by bacteria grew faster. One reason why such an institution was badly needed.

"To answer the need, in 1927 the Dutch colonial government built another laboratory on Pegangsaan Oost street (now Jl. Cikini), which separated the Eijkman Institute," said Firman Lubis, lecturer at the School of Medicine of the University of Indonesia.

This laboratory, the Queen Wilhelmina Institute for Hygienics and Bacteriology, then became a division of the medical college.

Firman, who is involved in the planning of a book on the school of medicine's 150th anniversary, said the Dutch government was also interested in the development of biological science because they needed healthy workers for their plantations.

The new tropical style complex mainly consisted of three blocks surrounded with a five-meter-high wall of granite.

The laboratory also had huge yards at the sides, which were once used as open spaces for various kinds of vivisection on animals such as monkeys, goats and rabbits.

"Through various experiments, laboratory assistants here produced various medicines, including a vaccine for smallpox, serums for typhus, cholera and dysentery -- also known as TCD serum," Firman said.

The building witnessed sadder times during the Japanese occupation between 1942 and 1945.

At that time, hundreds of Romusha (forced labor) were vaccinated so they would be immune to various diseases. But some of them died as a result of the vaccinations.

"The Japanese government then accused the laboratory assistants of sabotage. They were captured and interned," Firman said.

The microbiology and Eijkman laboratories have now become a city asset.

"We never had any documents stating that our building is protected, I think it is included in the protected Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital," Herawati said.

After being neglected for more than 30 years, the Eijkman building was renovated in 1993 even the work was not done by building restoration experts.

The 5,500-square-meter-wide complex forms a square with a park at its center. It has a tropical architectural style with a high roof and open veranda facing toward the park, which is used as a parking lot.

Its veranda, ventilation bars, windows and other parts which give access to the open air, have been closed off by glass since the management equipped the building with air-conditioning.

But by doing so, the genuine parts of the building can be saved.