Adolf Dieudonné (29 August 1864 – 25 October 1944) was a German physician and
hygienist
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 ...
, born in
Stuttgart
Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...
.
He studied medicine in
Tübingen,
Berlin,
Munich and
Würzburg, and, from 1888, was a physician in the
Bavarian army. Several years later, he was stationed at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin, where he was exposed to the latest developments of
Emil von Behring (1854–1917). In 1897, under the direction of
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 Vibrio ...
(1843–1910), he along with
Georg Gaffky (1850–1918) and
Richard Pfeiffer (1858–1945), researched the
bubonic plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the plague bacterium (''Yersinia pestis''). One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well a ...
in
Bombay. After his return to Germany, he spent six years as a
military physician
The term military medicine has a number of potential connotations. It may mean:
*A medical specialty, specifically a branch of occupational medicine attending to the medical risks and needs (both preventive and interventional) of sold ...
in Würzburg, where in 1898 he gained his habilitation in hygiene at the university.
In 1904, he was appointed to the ''Kriegsakademie'' in
Munich, where he instructed military officers, while at the same time teaching classes at the
University of Munich. In 1906, he became an honorary professor, and three years later was appointed as ''Ministerialrat'' and ''Medizinalreferent'' in the Ministry of the Interior, subsequently becoming head of Bavarian Aid Services.
For most of his career he dealt with the issue of controlling outbreaks of disease, in the civilian as well as in the military sector. In his various roles he was involved with bubonic plague,
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
,
typhoid,
Spanish flu,
diphtheria,
scarlet fever
Scarlet fever, also known as Scarlatina, is an infectious disease caused by ''Streptococcus pyogenes'' a Group A streptococcus (GAS). The infection is a type of Group A streptococcal infection (Group A strep). It most commonly affects childr ...
, ''et al''.
His name is associated with "Dieudonné agar", which is a medium used for cultivation and detection of ''
vibrio cholerae''.
Among his written works are the following:
* ''Immunität, Schutzimpfung und Serumtherapie'', (with
Wolfgang Weichardt
Julius Wolfgang Weichardt (13 May 1875 – 1943) was a German bacteriologist who was a native of Altenburg, Thüringen.
In 1900 he received his doctorate at Breslau, where he became an assistant to Carl Flügge (1847-1923) at the laboratory for ...
) –
Immunity,
vaccination and
serum therapy.
* ''Bacterial food poisoning; a concise exposition of the etiology, bacteriology, pathology, symptomatology, prophylaxis, and treatment of so-called ptomaine poisoning''
Notes
References
''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' Dieudonné, Adolf.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dieudonne, Adolf
German military doctors
German infectious disease physicians
Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Physicians from Stuttgart
1864 births
1944 deaths