After working in various places in postal services, he eventually became a chief in the 'Black Cabinet' of Kiev, dealing in censorship and intelligence.
Alfons chose to enter into a medical career, and after gaining his qualifications, worked throughout his life at his alma mater, the Saint Vladimir University of Kiev (now National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv).
Its characterisation as a primary ciliary dyskinesia was not made until after the advent of TEM, by Azfelius in 1976[6] when he showed it to be a disorder of motility of cilia and flagella, This would exclude primary cilia (nodal) which are thought to be implicated in the anomaly of the situs inversus part of the syndrome.
[8] Strophanthin, also known as ouabain, an ancient arrow poison used in eastern Africa, had attracted the attentions of European pharmacologists at the end of the nineteenth century.
In 1882, ouabain was isolated from the plant by the French chemist Léon-Albert Arnaud and identified as a cardiac glycoside.