Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2253

AUGUST VON WASSERMANN (1866-1925) Eine serodiagnostische Reaktion bei Syphilis. (In Deutsche medizinische Wochenscrift. Vol. 32 (1906), pp. [745]-746.) 32 cm.

In 1905, Fritz Schaudinn's (1871-1906) discovery of the causative agent of syphilis, Spirochaeta pallida, was a major achievement and marked the beginning of a new era in the study of syphilis. The following year Wassermann, Neisser, and Bruck published the present article which announced their development of the Wassermann test. Wassermann received his doctor's degree at Strasbourg in the late 1880s and worked at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin until 1906. Prior to his work on syphilis, Wassermann had done important investigations on toxins and antitoxins. He had also developed a complement fixation test for the diagnosis of tuberculosis based on the complement fixation reaction discovered by Bordet and Gengou in 1901. The significance of the Wassermann test and its application to modern clinical medicine can hardly be overemphasized.

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 2402

Gift of John Martin, M.D.