Ernest S. Tierkel

Tierkel retired from the PSPHS on March 29, 1973, but not from active professional life. Upon retirement from the PHS, Tierkel settled his family in the rural state of Delaware, not far from his roots in Washington, D.C. There he was able to reconnect with public health at a local level as Director of the Bureau of Disease Control and Chief Epidemiologist for the State of Delaware. It was this that he enjoyed most, dealing with the public health problems of everyday people, instituting programs that had benefit for the people that surrounded him. It was his love of life that always made him happy.

Tierkel spent a great deal of time as a member of the international health community. His love of different cultures allowed him to enjoy every assignment that brought him to new and varied landscapes. Whether it was Geneva, working with the WHO on global rabies control, or New Delhi, where he spent 3 years working with AID on communicable disease control and zoonoses, Tierkel savored the world around him. As a frequent speaker at Harvard University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, Emory University, and the University of Georgia, Tierkel was able to pass his knowledge on to others. Additionally Tierkel's work was widely published in over 50 times. Tierkel capped his career when he was appointed assistant surgeon general in 1968.

In between all of this passionate pursuit of science, Tierkel found time for other passions, most notably the love of his life Ruby Reams Tierkel. Tierkel met Ruby at the officer's club at Ft. McPherson in Atlanta, where they were both living. Tierkel asked Ruby if he might call on her for dinner some time and she said, “of course”. Tierkel called one Sunday afternoon and asked Ruby out for dinner that night with Ruby replying, “Are you kidding? Tonight? The next time you call, please have the courtesy to plan ahead!”. Not to be deterred, Tierkel, who was off to Europe for a WHO meeting the next day, sent Ruby a telegram from Geneva, asking if she might select a suitable evening that she was free for them to have dinner. Having been smitten, Tierkel continued to pursue Ruby, which culminated in their being married on July 13, 1958.

Tierkel's mother had a significant role in running the family business, taking charge of the family newspaper after the death of Tierkel's father in 1948. The children in the house would help publish their newspaper, helping with the typesetting and eventually contributing writing and editing on a wide and varied array of subjects. This environment gave Tierkel his love of science, theater, history, community, and Zionism. Many a night were spent at the theater or the opera, using the free tickets that came to the newspaper's offices. But it was not all work at the Tierkel household. During the summers, Esther and the children would spend time in Atlantic City, building sand castles, strolling on the boardwalk, and enjoying the big bands on Atlantic City Pier. This would instill a great love of the ocean in Tierkel for the rest of his life that he would pass on to his children. The family's network of friends that they established were from many varied walks of life, giving the children a great view into many cultures. Tierkel's mother was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt.

In the summer of 1946 Tierkel applied to the USPHS for appointment as a scientist and came to Washington. Tierkel then went to Montgomery, Alabama when he found out that the Rockefeller Rabies Laboratory was available. Tierkel was the first CDC'er on the scene. There they followed through on evaluating the new chicken embryo rabies vaccine, which set the basis for rabies control in the U.S. and later through MHO to the world. Tierkel's basic work with Martha Edson and Bob Kissling is a milestone and shall remain the basis of rabies control. Later the same evaluation was to be made of polio vaccine based on the same methods. And the polio vaccination disease of 1956 had its precedent in the failure of ether 'Killed* rabies vaccine, which Tierkel explained to David Price and the Washington investigators. In 1946 there were 10,000 cases of canine rabies every year reported in the United States. By 1975 there were only 129 cases of canine rabies reported in the United States. This dramatic success was due to the immunization program that resulted from Tierkel's work.

Having spent the majority of his life in Philadelphia, growing up, attending college and medical school, Tierkel was then attracted to New York City, where he joined the Department of Agriculture Bureau of Animal Industry as a Public Health Veterinarian Pathologist. Tierkel found a bachelor's apartment in New York City with his childhood friend Dr. Ernest Witt, with whom he had attended to high school, university, and medical school. He found during his tenure at the Department of Agriculture that there was a great deal of opportunity to solve many public health issues in this country. It was his USDA role that convinced Tierkel of these opportunities. While at the Department of Agriculture, Tierkel saw that as a public health advocate and scientist he could have a great impact on the world. With this in mind he attended Columbia University and received his master's degree in Public Health in 1945 while still working at the USDA.

It was not until his university experience at the University of Pennsylvania, out from under the strict nature of home, that Tierkel began to travel and broaden his life pursuits. Before graduating from Penn with his Bachelor of Arts in 1938, he spent a semester at the University of Virginia and gained his love of southern hospitality and culture – which was to play an important role in Tierkel's life. Tierkel then continued on to the medical school at University of Pennsylvania and to receive his V.M.D. in 1942. Tierkel continued his education in public health at Columbia University in New York City, where he was awarded his master's degree in Public Health in 1945.

This exposure to the wide culture of the world set the foundation for Tierkel's later life. It gave him the drive and passion to learn all that he could about the world around him. Tierkel was a serious student and took advantage of the great public school system of Philadelphia and graduated with honors in June 1930 from the Horace Binney School and then in 1934 from the acclaimed Central High School (Philadelphia). An early example of his service was as chairman of the Student Patrol at Central High School.

Ernest Shalom Tierkel (July 2, 1917 – November 2, 1981) was an epidemiologist, whose lifelong work in implementing vaccines and programs eliminated rabies as a major public health concern in the United States. His work was then spread through the World Health Organization (WHO) to the rest of the world. Tierkel came to be known as “Dr. Rabies”.

Tierkel's father and his family arrived at Ellis Island in the United States on August 1, 1893, on the German ship Meier after a long immigration from the small village of Moliv, in the Ukraine. Tierkel's grandfather, Fischel Tierkel, made the decision that the continued violence against the Jews in the Ukraine was not sustainable for raising his family. It was then with his wife Rachel, son David, and daughters Lura, Emma, and Ethel, Tierkel set off for a better life. They tried Heidelberg, Germany for a few years, where David, the eldest child, enrolled in the University, but found that Jews were not met with hospitality in Germany either. The family then set off for the land of opportunity, The United States. After arriving at Ellis Island on a hot August day in 1893, the Tierkel family eventually settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where a large Eastern-European Jewish population was thriving.