Edwin Klebs

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Edwin Klebs
University of Prague
University of Zurich
Rush Medical College
Doctoral advisorRudolf Virchow
Doctoral studentsOtto Lubarsch

Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs (6 February 1834 – 23 October 1913) was a German-Swiss

infectious diseases. His works paved the way for the beginning of modern bacteriology, and inspired Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch. He was the first to identify a bacterium that causes diphtheria, which was called Klebs–Loeffler bacterium (now Corynebacterium diphtheriae).[1][2] He was the father of physician Arnold Klebs
.

Life

Klebs was born in Königsberg, Province of Prussia. He studied at the University of Würzburg under Rudolf Virchow in 1855 and received his doctorate at the University of Berlin in 1858. He achieved his habilitation at the University of Königsberg the following year.

Klebs was an assistant to Virchow at the Charité in Berlin from 1861 until 1866, when he became a professor of pathology at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He married Rosa Grossenbacher, a Swiss, and also acquired Swiss citizenship. He served as a military physician for the Prussian Army in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War; several of his ancestors had fought during the Napoleonic Wars.

Klebs taught at Würzburg from 1872 to 1873, at

Strassburg
in 1894.

From 1896 to 1900, Klebs taught at Rush Medical College in Chicago, United States.[3] From 1905 to 1910, he was a private researcher in Berlin, after which he returned to Switzerland, living with his oldest son in Lausanne. Klebs died in Bern.[1][4]

Discoveries

In 1883, Klebs successfully identified the

bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae as the etiological agent of diphtheria. This bacterium is also known as the Klebs-Löffler bacillus.[5]

The bacterial genus

charophyte green algae comprising 20 species,was also named in his honour in 1972.[7][8]

Klebs' works preceded some of the most important discoveries in medicine. He described

Salmonella typhi) before Karl Joseph Eberth.[9]

Fundamental tests in bacteriology

Klebs identified four "Grundversuche" (fundamental tests) that provided a basis for his own research strategy, as well as general bacteriological research. According to Klebs, the bacteriological tests consist of the following postulates:

  • First, all bacteria are pathological.
  • Second, bacteria never occur spontaneously.
  • Third, every disease is caused only by bacteria.
  • Fourth, the bacteria that cause distinguishable disease are distinguishable.

Although some of these hypotheses are literally false, they are in general the foundation of modern experiments in bacteriology.[10]

Scientific blunders

Klebs made some significant errors about infectious diseases. He believed, for example, that

protozoan parasite (which he called Oscillaria malariae, now Plasmodium falciparum), the discovery was ignored in preference of the bacillus theory of Klebs and Tommasi-Crudeli.[14] An American physician, though, George Miller Sternberg, proved that the bacillus did not cause specific symptoms of malaria in 1881.[15] The bacillus theory was eventually proved wrong by the experimental demonstration of the mosquito-malaria theory in 1898.[16][17]

Klebs also made mistakes in claiming the existence of Microzoon septicum as causative agent of wound infection, and "monadines" as the pathogen for rheumatism.[1]

References

  1. ^
    PMID 17753538
    .
  2. doi:10.1002/path.1700180140
    .
  3. doi:10.1001/jama.1968.03140210085024
    .
  4. S2CID 220177980
    .
  5. PMID 24220527
    .
  6. ^ "Klebs, Theodor Albrecht Edwin". The Free Medical Dictionary. Farlex, Inc. a Hotchalk Partner. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  7. ^ Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. (2008). "Klebsormidium". AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. Retrieved 2011-01-17.
  8. S2CID 246307410
    . Retrieved January 27, 2022.
  9. doi:10.1038/136675c0
    .
  10. S2CID 40487428
    .
  11. PMID 20205846
    .
  12. ISBN 978-1-84816-903-6
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0-08-055939-1
    .
  14. PMID 2578751
    .
  15. ISBN 978-0-595-40731-6
    .
  16. ^ Lalchhandama, K (2014). "The making of modern malariology: from miasma to mosquito-malaria theory" (PDF). Science Vision. 14 (1): 3–17. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-04-27.
  17. ^ "History of Malaria: Scientific Discoveries". Dr. B.S. Kakkilaya's Malaria Web Site. Archived from the original on 10 October 2012. Retrieved 15 June 2014.

Further reading

External links

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