German-Swiss microbiologist (1834?1913)
Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs
(6 February 1834 ? 23 October 1913) was a German-Swiss
microbiologist
. He is mainly known for his work on
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
[
edit
]
Klebs was born in
Konigsberg
,
Province of Prussia
. He studied at the
University of Wurzburg
under
Rudolf Virchow
in 1855 and received his doctorate at the
University of Berlin
in 1858. He achieved his
habilitation
at the
University of Konigsberg
the following year.
Klebs was an assistant to Virchow at the
Charite
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 Wurzburg from 1872 to 1873, at
Prague
from 1873 to 1882, and at
Zurich
from 1882 to 1892. Because of disagreements with the rest of the faculty, the impetuous Klebs resigned from Zurich in 1893 and ran an unsuccessful private business in
Karlsruhe
and
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
[
edit
]
In 1883, Klebs successfully identified the
bacterium
Corynebacterium diphtheriae
as the etiological agent of
diphtheria
. This bacterium is also known as the
Klebs-Loffler bacillus
.
[5]
The bacterial genus
Klebsiella
is named in honor of his work.
[6]
Also
Klebsormidium
, which is a genus of filamentous
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
acromegaly
in 1884, two years before
Pierre Marie
. In 1878, he successfully inoculated
syphilis
in monkeys, antedating
Elie Metchnikoff
and
Emile Roux
by 25 years. He isolated colonies of bacteria nine years before Robert Koch. He was the first to produce
tuberculosis
experimentally in animals by the injection of milk from infected cows. He identified the typhoid bacillus (now named
Salmonella typhi
) before
Karl Joseph Eberth
.
[9]
Fundamental tests in bacteriology
[
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]
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
[
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]
Klebs made some significant errors about infectious diseases. He believed, for example, that
malaria
was caused by a bacterium. In 1879,
Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli
and he claimed that they isolated a bacterium from the waters of Pontine Marshes in
Roman Campagna
. They concluded that the bacterium was the pathogen for malaria as they discovered it from damp soil in the region of malaria epidemics. They gave it the name
Bacillus malariae
. They further experimented with the bacterial
isolate
which they injected into rabbits. They observed that infected rabbits developed fever and enlarged spleen, characteristics of malaria. They proposed that the malarial bacterium was transmitted by drinking contaminated water or inhalation from air.
[11]
Klebs reported that antimalarial drug
quinine
killed the germ.
[12]
The discovery was supported by leading malariologists of the time.
[13]
It was then declared that the malaria problem was solved. When a French Army physician
Charles Alphonse Laveran
correctly discovered in 1880 that malaria was caused by a
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
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Garrison, F.H. (1913).
"Edwin Klebs (1834-1913)"
.
Science
.
38
(991): 920?921.
Bibcode
:
1913Sci....38..920G
.
doi
:
10.1126/science.38.991.920
.
JSTOR
1639550
.
PMID
17753538
.
- ^
Anonymous (1913). "Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs. Born Konigsberg-i.-Pr., February 6, 1834-died Berne, October 23, 1913".
The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology
.
18
(1): 401?403.
doi
:
10.1002/path.1700180140
.
- ^
Anonymous (1968). "Edwin Klebs (1834-1913) Peripatetic Bacteriologist".
JAMA
.
204
(8): 729?730.
doi
:
10.1001/jama.1968.03140210085024
.
- ^
Anonymous (1913). "Professor Edwin Klebs".
BMJ
.
2
(2760): 1413?1414.
doi
:
10.1136/bmj.2.2760.1413-d
.
S2CID
220177980
.
- ^
Ellis, H (2013). "Edwin Klebs: discoverer of the bacillus of diphtheria".
British Journal of Hospital Medicine
.
74
(11): 641.
doi
:
10.12968/hmed.2013.74.11.641
.
PMID
24220527
.
- ^
"Klebs, Theodor Albrecht Edwin"
.
The Free Medical Dictionary
. Farlex, Inc. a Hotchalk Partner
. Retrieved
8 July
2014
.
- ^
Guiry, M.D.; Guiry, G.M. (2008).
"
Klebsormidium
"
.
AlgaeBase
. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway
. Retrieved
2011-01-17
.
- ^
Burkhardt, Lotte (2022).
Eine Enzyklopadie zu eponymischen Pflanzennamen
[
Encyclopedia of eponymic plant names
]
(pdf)
(in German). Berlin: Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum, Freie Universitat Berlin.
doi
:
10.3372/epolist2022
.
ISBN
978-3-946292-41-8
.
S2CID
246307410
. Retrieved
January 27,
2022
.
- ^
Anonymous (1935).
"Edwin Klebs"
.
Nature
.
136
(3443): 675?676.
Bibcode
:
1935Natur.136S.675.
.
doi
:
10.1038/136675c0
.
- ^
Carter, KC (2001). "Edwin Klebs's Grundversuche".
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
.
75
(4): 771?781.
doi
:
10.1353/bhm.2001.0164
.
PMID
11740130
.
S2CID
40487428
.
- ^
Cox, Francis EG (2010).
"History of the discovery of the malaria parasites and their vectors"
.
Parasites & Vectors
.
3
(1): 5.
doi
:
10.1186/1756-3305-3-5
.
PMC
2825508
.
PMID
20205846
.
- ^
Sherman, Irwin W. (2012).
The malaria genome projects : promise, progress, and prospects
. London: Imperial College Press. p. 3.
ISBN
978-1-84816-903-6
.
- ^
Cook, G.C. (2007).
Tropical Medicine: an Illustrated History of The Pioneers
. Burlington: Elsevier. p. 70.
ISBN
978-0-08-055939-1
.
- ^
Smith, DC; Sanford, LB (1985). "Laveran's germ: the reception and use of a medical discovery".
The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene
.
34
(1): 2?20.
doi
:
10.4269/ajtmh.1985.34.2
.
PMID
2578751
.
- ^
Lehrer, Steven (2006).
Explorers of the body : dramatic breakthroughs in medicine from ancient times to modern science
(2nd ed.). New York: iUniverse. p. 248.
ISBN
978-0-595-40731-6
.
- ^
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.
- ^
"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
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External links
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