Dr Edward Elkan: pioneering pathologist and his photograph of an Okapi

EDWARD ELKAN (1895-1983) is recognised as a pioneer of the pathology of amphibians and reptiles which began when in medical practice in London he was trying out the then newly developed human pregnancy test using the Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis. Elkan was interested in animal life generally but also in photography. His photographs taken when he was working as a doctor amongst the Jewish settlers in Palestine in the 1920s have been exhibited and published as a book.

I found this photograph of an Okapi at London Zoo in the readers’ photographs section of the August 1939 issue of Animal and Zoo Magazine. He won ‘a guinea’ (i.e. £1, 1s)—worth about £60 today.

Elkan had a fascinating history, reflecting his background, nationality and the key events of the 20th century. A secular Jew, he fought for Germany in the the First World War; he then developed an interest in medicine and in Zionism. It was after qualifying that he went to Palestine. On returning to Germany he became a target of the Nazis and so emigrated to Britain in 1933. With the help of leading doctors in the birth control movement he added a British medical qualification to his German M.D. and then started his work on the Xenopus pregnancy test. He was interned as an ‘enemy alien’ on the outbreak of the Second World War (i.e. shortly after his photograph of the Okapi was published) but was then released to work as a doctor in County Durham. After the war he joined a medical practice in Pinner, restarted his pregnancy testing and developed his part-time but intense interest in amphibian and reptilian pathology.

A post on ZooChat shows, incidentally that the Okapi Elkan photographed was the only one in London during the late 1930s, a male ‘born in Africa’ in 1936 which had arrived at the Zoo on 21 July 1937.