Erich Hoffmann (April 25, 1868 – May 8, 1959) was a German dermatologist who was a native of Witzmitz, Pomerania.

He studied medicine at the Berlin Military Academy, and was later a professor at the Universities of Halle and Bonn.

Hoffmann is remembered for his research performed with zoologist Fritz Schaudinn (1871-1906) at the Charité Clinic in Berlin. In 1905 Schaudinn and Hoffmann discovered the bacterium that was responsible for syphilis, a spiral-shaped spirochete called Treponema pallidum. The organism was removed from a papula in the vulva of a patient with secondary syphilis. The two doctors documented their findings in a treatise called Vorläufiger Bericht über das Vorkommen von Spirochaeten in syphilitischen Krankheitsprodukten und bei Papillome.^[1]

Hoffmann left Germany during the era of National Socialism, but returned to Bonn after the war and established a laboratory. In the late 1940s he published two books about his life in medicine, titled "Wollen und Schaffen" and "Ringen um Vollendung".

References

• Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia The Discovery of Treponema pallidum