Friedrich Fülleborn (September 13, 1866 – September 9, 1933) was a physician who specialized in tropical medicine and

parasitology Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question but by their way of life. This means it fo ...

. He was a native of Kulm,

West Prussia The Province of West Prussia (german: Provinz Westpreußen; csb, Zôpadné Prësë; pl, Prusy Zachodnie) was a province of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and 1878 to 1920. West Prussia was established as a province of the Kingdom of Prussia in 177 ...

, which today is known as

Chełmno Chełmno (; older en, Culm; formerly ) is a town in northern Poland near the Vistula river with 18,915 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is the seat of the Chełmno County in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. Due to its regional importan ...

, Poland. He studied medicine and

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

in Berlin, where one of his instructors was Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer (1835–1921). From 1896 onward, he was a military physician assigned to the

Schutztruppe (, Protection Force) was the official name of the colonial troops in the African territories of the German colonial empire from the late 19th century to 1918. Similar to other colonial armies, the consisted of volunteer European commissioned ...

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; german: Deutsch-Ostafrika) was a German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Mozam ...

. In 1898–1900 he participated in the ''Nyassa- und Kingagebirgs Expedition'' to the southern part of the colony, where he conducted

anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

and

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

research.Deutsches Kolonial-Lexikon (1920), Band I, S. 670
biography In 1901 he became director of the Department of Tropical

Hygiene Hygiene is a series of practices performed to preserve health. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "Hygiene refers to conditions and practices that help to maintain health and prevent the spread of diseases." Personal hygiene refer ...

and Tropical Medicine at the Hamburg Institute for Marine and Tropical Diseases. In 1908 he was appointed by

Georg Thilenius Georg Christian Thilenius (4 October 1868 – 28 December 1937) was a German physician and anthropologist who was a native of Soden am Taunus. He studied medicine in Bonn and Berlin, and in 1896 was habilitated as an anatomist at the University ...

(1868–1937) of the

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Museum of

Ethnology Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural anthropology, cultural, social anthropolo ...

to head the " Hamburg South Seas Expedition", a scientific mission to the South Pacific. In 1930 he succeeded

Bernhard Nocht Bernhard is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (1604–1639), Duke of Saxe-Weimar * Bernhard, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen (1901–1984), head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen 19 ...

(1857–1945) as director of the Hamburg Institute for Marine and Tropical Diseases, a position he maintained until his death in 1933. During his career he took several tropical medical study trips to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

, the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...

, etc. He is especially known for his filarian research and as an instructor of tropical medicine classes in Hamburg. While working with dogs in Hamburg, he described " autoinfection" and discovered the migratory route taken by the parasite ''

Strongyloides stercoralis ''Strongyloides stercoralis'' is a human pathogenic parasitism, parasitic nematode, roundworm causing the disease strongyloidiasis. Its common name in the US is threadworm. In the UK and Australia, however, the term ''threadworm'' can also refe ...

'' prior to ending up in the

intestine The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans ...

. The term "Fülleborn's method" is a procedure for examining parasitic ova in faecal matter.

Legacy

Fülleborn is commemorated in the scientific name of a number of species including the

chameleon Chameleons or chamaeleons (family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 202 species described as of June 2015. The members of this family are best known for their distinct range of colors, bein ...

'' Trioceros fuelleborni'', the

cichlid Cichlids are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Cichliformes. Cichlids were traditionally classed in a suborder, the Labroidei, along with the wrasses ( Labridae), in the order Perciformes, but molecular studies have contradicted this ...

fish '' Labeotropheus fuelleborni'', and the bird

Fülleborn's longclaw Fülleborn's longclaw (''Macronyx fuelleborni'') or Fuelleborn's longclaw, is a species of bird in the family Motacillidae. It is found in damp grassy habitats in south-central Africa. Taxonomy Two subspecies of Fülleborn's longclaw are recogni ...

''Macronyx fuelleborni''.

Published works

* ''Das deutsche Njassa- und Ruwuma-gebiet, land und leute, nebst bemerkungen über die Schire-Länder. : Mit benutzung von ergebnissen der Njassa- und Kingagebirgs-expedition der Hermann und Elise geb. Heckmann Wentzel-stiftung'' (1906) – The German Nyassa and Ruwuma region, the country and its people; along with remarks on the Shire-regions: written with the use of results from the Nyassa and Kinga Mountains expedition of the Hermann and Elise Heckmann (née Wentzel) Foundation. * ''Filariosen des Menschen'' (1929) – Human

filariasis Filariasis is a parasitic disease caused by an infection with roundworms of the Filarioidea type. These are spread by blood-feeding insects such as black flies and mosquitoes. They belong to the group of diseases called helminthiases. These ...

.OCLC Classify
published works

Sources

* This article incorporates translated text from an equivalent article at the

German Wikipedia The German Wikipedia (german: Deutschsprachige Wikipedia) is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Wikipedia (after the English Wikipedia), ...

, whose sources include: Stefan Wulf: Fülleborn, Friedrich. In: Hamburgische Biography, Volume 5, Wallenstein, Göttingen 2010 , p 123-125
Dorlands Medical Dictionary
(definition of eponym)

References

External links

* 1866 births 1933 deaths German military doctors German parasitologists People from Chełmno People from the Province of Prussia Schutztruppe personnel German tropical physicians {{Germany-med-bio-stub