Georg Theodor August Gaffky (17 February 1850 – 23 September 1918) was a

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

-born

bacteriologist A bacteriologist is a microbiologist, or similarly trained professional, in bacteriology -- a subdivision of microbiology that studies bacteria, typically pathogenic ones. Bacteriologists are interested in studying and learning about bacteria, ...

best known for identifying

bacillus ''Bacillus'' (Latin "stick") is a genus of Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria, a member of the phylum '' Bacillota'', with 266 named species. The term is also used to describe the shape (rod) of other so-shaped bacteria; and the plural ''Bacill ...

salmonella typhi ''Salmonella enterica'' subsp. ''enterica'' is a subspecies of '' Salmonella enterica'', the rod-shaped, flagellated, aerobic, Gram-negative bacterium. Many of the pathogenic serovars of the ''S. enterica'' species are in this subspecies, includi ...

as the cause of

typhoid Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by ''Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over several d ...

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

in 1884.

Early life and career

Gaffky's parents were the shipping agent Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Gaffky, and Emma Schumacher. His medical studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

were completed in 1873 after an interruption by the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. His dissertation postulated a relationship between lead poisoning and kidney disease. He worked as an assistant at the Berlin Charité hospital and passed the state medical exams in 1875. He then worked as an army surgeon. Gaffky worked as an assistant to

Robert Koch Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch ( , ; 11 December 1843 – 27 May 1910) was a German physician and microbiologist. As the discoverer of the specific causative agents of deadly infectious diseases including tuberculosis, cholera (though the bacteri ...

in Berlin. Under Koch's leadership, Gaffky and others developed bacteriological protocols and achieved progress in identifying causes of

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...

Principal discoveries

Following Karl Joseph Eberth's description of a bacillus suspected as the cause of typhus, and Koch's independent work on the same organism, Gaffky dedicated years to improving culture methods to isolate the bacillus. He was able to produce cultures in gelatin and other hosts. In 1884, Gaffky published results reporting that he had isolated the eberthella or Gaffky-Eberth bacillus in 26 of 28 cases of typhoid.Gaffky (1884
"Zur Aetiology des Abdominaltyphus"
(On the etiology of abdominal typhus), ''Mittheilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte'', 2 : 372-420. Gaffky was later part of an expedition to Egypt in which Koch identified transmission methods of cholera. He became a government advisor during the 1892 cholera outbreak in

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

. He led an investigation of the 1897 outbreak of bubonic plague in India. Gaffky served as director of the Berlin Institute for Infectious Diseases from 1904–1913.

References

* Gloria Robinson, "Gaffky, Georg Theodor August." Charles Coulston Gillispie, Dictionary of Scientific Biographies. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).

External links

* 1850 births 1918 deaths Physicians from Hanover German bacteriologists Medical Microbiology and Immunology editors {{Germany-biologist-stub