He pioneered research in many fields, in particular rabies, influenza and tropical diseases, where his contributions have been of great importance throughout the world. He published works on health hazards of the human environment and public health responses to chemical and biological weapons. He was instrumental in global understanding of the overlap between veterinary science and public health and the health implications of biological weapons. His was a life-long commitment to global health and to world peace and security.
The youngest of eight children whose parents emigrated from Russia in the 1880s, he grew up in Philadelphia. At age eleven, after joining Hoxie's Harmonica Band (a prized pastime for boys at the time) he won the city-wide championship for harmonica excellence.
After college studies, he trained as a veterinarian and for a few years held a large- and small-animal practice in Philadelphia. During World War II he joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and, on VE day, sailed for Greece on a Swedish freighter, the Boulanghena, escorting six prize bulls donated by the Brethren Society of Pennsylvania for the purpose of restocking the cattle population of Greece.
Once there, he set about establishing new laboratories and refurbishing old ones, and began producing much-needed animal vaccines, as well as teaching new methods to the local professionals. To upgrade the local animal population he travelled to Cyprus and Lebanon to purchase Arab stallions and mules.
When UNRRA closed down he joined the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), performing similar work in various European countries, Poland in particular.
On return home, for a brief period, he was Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at what is now Brandeis University, chosen for the post at the behest of Albert Einstein, whose vision it was to create an institution of professional schools only, medical and veterinary to begin with. This was meant to countervail the practise of numerus clausus that apparently was operating at that time.
Unfortunately the project fell through as other interested parties in Boston urged – and won – establishment of a normal university with undergraduate classes. Einstein, however, withdrew his support at that point.
Einstein served as an example to Dr. Kaplan of scientists who took a stand against injustice in the world and reached across national barriers in search of peaceful solutions to the world`s conflicts. Kaplan wrote the following in his 1971 essay “Science and Social Values”:
“And yet we are faced with war, poverty, increasing disorder and social alienation, distorted priorities, declining freedom and individual powerlessness. These are products not of man's inherent evil but of the inexorable grinding of the national machines with their imperatives of growth, profit, and glory”.
One of Dr. Kaplan's souvenirs of the time was bringing his mother's chicken soup to Einstein, who had a particular liking for home-cooked food.
In 1947, Dr. Kaplan rejoined FAO and was bound for an assignment in China with his wife and 6-month-old daughter, but was asked to stop in Poland on the way to organize a symposium and teaching course. During the next crucial months of this stay, the Chinese revolution was moving towards its last stages and he was forced finally to cancel his China plans.
In 1949, after further European assignments, he joined the nascent World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland to form a veterinary division in that organization. In collaboration with scientists at the University of Wisconsin, he carried out early investigations of the flu virus in animals and birds and worked in laboratory research on rabies with scientists at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia during home-leaves and sabbatical years. His contributions to these fields have been of great importance throughout the world.
Leaving the veterinary division at WHO, he became Director of Science and Technology in the office of the Director-General, Dr. Marcolino Candau, and later the Office of Research and Development.
In 1958, concurrently with his work at WHO, he joined the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a movement dedicated to bringing together scientists of the world in the interests of peace and, in particular the control of weapons of mass destruction. In 1976, on retiring from WHO, he became Secretary-General of Pugwash Conferences for the next dozen years leading, in 1995, to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for the organization and its founder, Sir Joseph Rotblat.
Meanwhile, in the early 1950's, at age 38, he learned to play the cello, and for the next fifty years, well into his eighties, in small string ensembles, he played weekly when at home in Geneva. He was a greater lover of music
He is survived by his wife of 60 years, Lenna Bouchal Kaplan, his children Alexa, Peter and Jeffrey, and his four grandchildren, Adam, Kira, Emma and Alexander.
