This Is A Life... To Emulate: Dr. Joel Breman -- Travel Well; Travel Light!

His daughter remembers his motto, during her high school years: "Adventure first, safety a close second." recalls Johanna Tzur. She says her father encouraged her to do a high school year abroad in the Soviet Union at a time when few Americans traveled there. It would be interesting, he promised. And one more thing, says Tzur: "I remember him vividly explaining I was never to eat anything that couldn't be peeled."

In the year before his death, Breman was still teaching a course on infectious diseases at George Washington University and working on a textbook as well as a memoir. Here's the NPR rundown of a wonderful life, in bio-sciences -- and in fact, in one of his proudest moments, in the 1980s, he won the Order of the Leopard, from the government of Zaire, for his work in mitigating endemic diseases there:

. . .Peter Piot, a fellow disease investigator, remembers the exact date that he met Breman. It was October 18, 1976, and Piot, then a young physician and microbiologist, had come to the city of Kinshasa in central Africa (in current-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) to investigate a terrifying, deadly, nameless new disease. Breman, already 40 years old and with several epidemic investigations under his belt, was there working for what was then called the U.S. Center for Disease Control. . . .

Piot says it was clear that the pilots dropping them and others into the remote epidemic zone never expected to see them alive again.

Once on the ground, Piot watched how Breman did his epidemiology. "He taught me that when you go into a village, you don't just start talking about why you're here," Piot said. Rather, they went early in the morning, talked with the village elders and asked them how they've been. "And then, and only then, you start with your questions."

Born in Chicago and raised in Los Angeles, Breman showed his talents and leadership early on. In high school he was student body president and a football player; in college at UCLA he was president of his fraternity and rowed varsity crew.

Breman graduated from the University of Southern California School of Medicine in 1965 and spent the next 11 years working on various diseases with the CDC and World Health Organization. He would go on to earn a doctorate in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. . . .

Piot, Breman and others spent several months on the ground in central Africa. The disease they were investigating turned out to be Ebola, which at the time had a 90 percent death rate.

"It was super stressful," said Piot. The team was sharing mattresses, working day and night, collecting data from people who didn't necessarily want to see them. "But [Breman] remained calm always."

By the end of the trip, Piot says he was bowled over by Breman's equanimity, patience, kindness, respectfulness, and his ability and enthusiasm in telling jokes in both English and French. . . .

A life well lived, indeed -- is its own reward. Travel well, but do travel light Dr. Breman. Smiling out into the sunshine, with baby girls due in for a play date, tonight. . . it is well, with my soul.

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