Eugen Woldemar Bostroem (13 October 1850 – 24 May 1928) was a
Baltic German pathologist. He was born in
Fellin
Viljandi (, german: Fellin, sv, Fellin) is a town and municipality in southern Estonia with a population of 17,407 in 2019. It is the capital of Viljandi County and is geographically located between two major Estonian cities, Pärnu and Tartu. ...
(today known as Viljandi), in the
Livonian Governorate of the
Russian Empire (present-day
Estonia).
He studied medicine at the universities of
Leipzig and
Erlangen, receiving his degree in 1876. Afterwards he was an assistant to
Friedrich Albert von Zenker (1825–1898) at the pathology institute in Erlangen. From 1883 to 1926 he was a professor of general
pathology and
pathological anatomy in
Gießen.
In 1890 Bostroem reportedly isolated the causative organism of
actinomycosis from a culture of grain, grasses, and soil. After Bostroem's discovery there was a general misconception that actinomycosis was a
mycosis that affected individuals who chewed grass or
straw
Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has a number ...
. The agents of actinomycosis are now known to be
endogenous
Endogenous substances and processes are those that originate from within a living system such as an organism, tissue, or cell.
In contrast, exogenous substances and processes are those that originate from outside of an organism.
For example, es ...
organisms of the mucous membranes, in most cases ''
Actinomyces israelii'', a species named after
surgeon
In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...
James Israel
James Adolf Israel (2 February 1848 – 2 February 1926) was a German surgeon.
Academic background
Israel was a native of Berlin, where he was born to Jewish parents. In 1870, Israel received his medical doctorate from Humboldt University ...
, who first discovered its presence in humans in the late 1870s.
In 1883 Bostroem was the first to describe a rare condition known as
splenogonadal fusion
Splenogonadal fusion is a rare congenital malformation that results from an abnormal connection between the primitive spleen and gonad during gestation. A portion of the splenic tissue then descends with the gonad. Splenogonadal fusion has been ...
. Since his discovery, approximately only 150 cases have been documented.
See also
*
List of Baltic German scientists
Selected writings
* ''Beiträge zur pathologischen Anatomie der Nieren'' (Contributions to the pathological anatomy of the
kidneys), Freiburg i.B. and Tübingen, 1884.
* ''Traumaticismus und Parasitismus als ursachen''
* ''Untersuchungen über die Aktinomykose des Menschen'' (Investigations on actinomycosis in humans), 1891.
References
ISBN Recherche(biographical information)
Mandell, Bennett, & Dolin: Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases
Article on Cervicofacial actinomycosisNCBISplenogonadal fusion: case presentation and literature review
1850 births
1928 deaths
People from Viljandi
People from Kreis Fellin
Baltic-German people
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany
German pathologists
Academic staff of the University of Giessen
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