Otto Gottlieb Mohnike (27 July 1814 – 26 January 1887) was a German physician and naturalist who was a native of Stralsund. He was the son of

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

Gottlieb Mohnike (1781–1841). He received his education in medicine at the Universities of

Greifswald Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rosto ...

and

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

, and following his studies, returned to Stralsund to practice medicine. From 1844 to 1869 he was a doctor in the services of the Dutch military, afterwards working as a physician in

, where he died on 26 January 1887. Mohnike is remembered for implementing the first successful nationwide

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

vaccination in Japan. Previous attempts at vaccination in Japan had failed due to vaccines losing their effectiveness while being transported on long sea journeys. In 1849 he instituted the practice of delivering fresh

cowpox Cowpox is an infectious disease caused by the ''cowpox virus'' (CPXV). It presents with large blisters in the skin, a fever and swollen glands, historically typically following contact with an infected cow, though in the last several decades more ...

vaccine from

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

in the Dutch East Indies to the Japanese port of

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole Nanban trade, port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hi ...

, thus creating a sharp reduction of

in Japan. Afterwards, he conducted research as a naturalist on

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 mos ...

, Sumatra,

Celebes Sulawesi (), also known as Celebes (), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sul ...

and the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...

Publications

* ''Die Cetoniden der Philippinischen Inseln'', 1873. * ''Banka und Palembang nebst Mittheilungen über Sumatra im Allgemeinen'', 1874.Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

References

* ''This article is based on a translation of an equivalent article at the German Wikipedia.'' 19th-century German physicians German naturalists People from Stralsund 1814 births 1887 deaths University of Bonn alumni University of Greifswald alumni {{Germany-med-bio-stub