Heinrich Botho Scheube (August 18, 1853 – 4 March 1923) was a German physician born in

Zeitz Zeitz ( hsb, Žič) is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river White Elster, in the triangle of the federal states Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Saxony. History Zeitz was first recorded und ...

. In 1876 he earned his doctorate from the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

, and following graduation remained in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

as an assistant in Carl Wunderlich's clinic for internal medicine. From 1877 to 1881 he taught classes at the medical school in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

and was director at a government hospital. Prior to his return to Germany, he visited China,

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

and

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. In 1885 he received his habilitation at

, and subsequently practiced medicine in

Greiz Greiz () is a town in the state of Thuringia, Germany, and is the capital of the district of Greiz. Greiz is situated in eastern Thuringia, east of state capital Jena, on the river ''White Elster''. Greiz has a large park in its center (Fürstl ...

, a town in eastern

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

. Scheube is largely known for his investigations of

beriberi Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (Vitamin B1). A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi. The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi. Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, r ...

. He also studied diseases prevalent in the tropics, and contributed a number of articles in the field of tropical medicine to Eulenburg's ''Realencyklopädia''. While in Japan he conducted research of

Ainu culture Ainu culture is the culture of the Ainu people, from around the 13th century (late Kamakura period) to the present. Today, most Ainu people live a life superficially similar to that of mainstream Japanese people, partly due to cultural assimilat ...

and customs.

Selected publications

* ''Die Ainos'' (The Ainu), 1881 * ''Klinische Propädeutik'' (Clinical

propaedeutics Propaedeutics or propedeutics (from Ancient Greek , ''propaídeusis'' 'preparatory education') is a historical term for an introductory course into an art or science. The etymology of propedeutics comprises the Latin prefix ''pro'', meaning earlier ...

), 1884 * ''Weitere Beiträge zur pathologischen Anatomie und Histologie der Beriberi'' (Additional contributions to the

pathological anatomy Anatomical pathology (''Commonwealth'') or Anatomic pathology (''U.S.'') is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the macroscopic, microscopic, biochemical, immunologic and molecular examination ...

and

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

of beriberi), 1884 * ''Klinische Beobachtungen über die Krankheiten Japans'' (Clinical observations on diseases of Japan) in ''

Virchows Archiv ''Virchows Archiv: European Journal of Pathology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal of all aspects of pathology, especially human pathology. It is published by Springer Science+Business Media and an official publication of the European ...

,'' 1885 * ''Die Beriberi-Krankheit'' (The berberi disease), 1894 * ''Die Krankheiten der warmen Länder'' (Diseases of tropical countries), 1896

Research

Pagel Biographical Dictionary
(translated from German)
Early European Writings on Ainu Culture
by Kirsten Refsing 1923 deaths 1853 births People from Zeitz People from the Province of Saxony German tropical physicians Anthropologists of the Ainu {{Germany-med-bio-stub