Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1871

MAX VON PETTENKOFER (1818-1901) Boden und Grundwasser in ihren Beziehungen zu Cholera und Typhus. R. Oldenbourg 1869 [4] 140 pp. 25 cm.

Pettenkofer ranks as one of Germany's greatest scientists and epidemiologists. Such men as he, Virchow, Pasteur, Louis, and Koch held especially important roles in Europe at a time when epidemics of many different diseases were so prevalent. Pettenkofer was born in Bavaria at Lichtenberg and received his medical degree at Munich in 1843. After graduation, he studied chemistry at Würzburg and in 1845 returned to Munich. In 1853 he became professor of medical chemistry and in 1878 he was given his own hygienic research institute. Although trained as a physician, Pettenkofer was a skilled and talented chemist who developed improved methods for separating precious metals and for generating illuminating gas from wood that had major commercial applications. He was the first to isolate creatine from urine and he developed tests for hippuric acid and bile in the urine. Pettenkofer was also the founder of experimental hygiene and his research touched all aspects of public health. His major contributions include: fabrication of a respiration chamber in which metabolism, respiration, nutrition, and food values could be studied; investigations into the ventilation of buildings and the relation of environmental conditions to clothing; improvement of water supply and sewage disposal in Munich, and a method of determining the carbon dioxide content of air, soil, and water. Pettenkofer's name is closely associated with the study of cholera and typhoid. It was his research into epidemics of these diseases that brought him into the field of epidemiology. His many studies were models of epidemiological research. Unfortunately, Pettenkofer's Boden (soil) theory of cholera, in which he postulated that cholera bacilli are not virulent until incubated in dirt or soil under special conditions, was incorrect. This work is the first separate edition of a paper which first appeared in the Zeitschrift für Biologie, on the role of soil and underground water in the spread of cholera and typhus.

Cited references: Waller 7345

Gift of John Martin, M.D.