Leander Tomarkin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leander William Tomarkin (13 December 1895 – 1967) was a Swiss impostor who claimed to possess a doctorate in medicine, as well as to have invented a miracle medicine for the cure of typhus, tuberculosis, meningitis, and malaria. He ascended to become the personal physician of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy, and he convinced Albert Einstein to become patron of a conference organised by him.
Leander Tomarkin was born on 13 December 1895 in Zollikon, Switzerland. A doctor's son, he was the black sheep of the family, obtaining bad results at school and dropping a chemistry degree at college. He also soon developed a reputation of dishonesty. He did not take up regular employment but spent his time in his father's laboratory, hoping to invent something.[1]
Tomarkin rose to fame when he offered to cure Pope Benedict XV's pneumonia in January 1922. The Pope died without Tomarkin being allowed to treat him but reporters subsequently picked up the story and enabled the progress of Tomarkin's medical career with publicising his Antimicrobum tomarkin medicine,[2] whose active ingredient he named Aminoortobenzoilsulfoisoamiloidrocupronucleinforminsodico.[1] The Antimicrobum was to reduce pneumonia mortality from about one third to 2%.[3] Tomarkin was allowed to treat a cousin of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, and the cousin recovered. As a result, the king named Tomarkin the personal physician of the family. A clinical test at the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome was also successful, later attributed to the better care for test patient and the relatively early stage of pneumonia that the patients were in.[1]
