- Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer
Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer (
March 27 ,1858 –September 15 1945 ) was a Germanphysician andbacteriologist . [cite web
url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/769487
title=JSTOR: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 2 (Nov., 1956 ), pp. 237-247
publisher=www.jstor.org
accessdate=2008-05-13
last=
first=]Pfeiffer was born in
Zduny ,Province of Posen , and died in Bad Landeck.Pfeiffer is remembered for his many fundamental discoveries in
immunology andbacteriology , particularly for the phenomenon of bacteriolysis. In 1894 he found that livecholera bacteria could be injected without ill effects into guinea pigs previously immunised againstcholera , and thatblood plasma from these animals added to livecholera bacteria caused them to become motionless and to lyse. This could be inhibited by previously heating theblood plasma . He called this bacteriolysis and it became known as the Pfeiffer Phenomenon, or Isayev-Pfeiffer phenomenon.Working with
Robert Koch in Berlin he intellectually and experimentally conceived the concept ofendotoxin as a heat-stable bacterial poison responsible for the pathophysiological consequences of certain infectious diseases.Endotoxin and anti-endotoxin antibodies have since then fascinated researchers of many disciplines, particularly in the fields of diagnosis, prevention, and therapy of severeGram-negative infections.Pfeiffer was a pioneer in
typhoid vaccination . He discovered the specific bacteria-dissolving immune bodies in cholera and typhus. The British pathologistAlmroth Wright is generally credited with the initiation oftyphoid vaccination in 1896. His claims of priority were challenged as early as 1907 in favour of Richard Pfeiffer. A review of the original literature of the 1890s and the early 1900s revealed that several groups were working ontyphoid vaccine at the same time and that the credit for the initiation oftyphoid vaccine studies should be shared by these two great researchers.In 1892 he isolated what he thought was the causative agent of
influenza . The culprit, according to Pfeiffer, was a small rod-shapedbacterium that he isolated from the noses of flu-infected patients . He dubbed it Bacillus influenzae (or Pfeiffer's bacillus), which was later calledHaemophilus influenzae . Few doubted the validity of this discovery, in large part because bacteria had been shown to cause other human diseases, including anthrax, cholera, and plague. When history's deadliest influenza pandemic began in 1918, most scientists believed that Pfeiffer's bacillus caused influenza. With the lethality of this outbreak (which killed an estimated 20 to 100 million worldwide) came urgency—researchers around the world began to search for Pfeiffer's bacillus in patients, hoping to develop antisera and vaccines that would protect against infection. In many patients, but not all, the bacteria were found. Failures to isolate B. influenzae (now known as Haemophilus influenzae) were largely chalked up to inadequate technique, as the bacteria were notoriously difficult to culture. The first blow to Pfeiffer's theory came from Peter Olitsky and Frederick Gates at The Rockefeller Institute. Olitsky and Gates took nasal secretions from patients infected with the 1918 flu and passed them through Berkefeld filters, which excludebacteria . The infectious agent — which caused lung disease in rabbits — passed through the filter, suggesting that it was not abacterium . Although the duo had perhaps isolated theinfluenza virus (which they nevertheless referred to as an atypical bacterium called Bacterium pneumosintes), other researchers could not reproduce their results.In 1896 he isolated micrococcus catarrhalis that is the cause of
laryngitis . M catarrhalis also causesbronchitis , andpneumonia in children and adults with underlying chronic lung disease. It is occasionally a cause ofmeningitis .Richard Pfeiffer also invented a universal staining for
histological preparations.Pfeiffer studied at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie in
Berlin from 1875 to 1879. After completing his studies he was conferred doctor of medicine in 1880 and subsequently served as an army physician andbacteriologist until 1889. He was a student ofRobert Koch (1843-1910), and from 1887 to 1891 worked as Koch's assistant in the Institute of Hygiene in Berlin. In 1891 he was entrusted with the leadership of the scientific department of the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Berlin.In 1897 Pfeiffer joined the German expedition under
Robert Koch to India to investigate the plague. The following year he went to Italy with Koch to do research onMalaria . He moved toKönigsberg to enter the chair of hygiene in 1899, succeeding Erwin von Esmarch (1855-1915). He remained in that city until 1909, when he moved on to the same chair inBreslau . Pfeiffer retired there as emeritus in 1925.References
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