Gustav Giemsa

Gustav Giemsa ( born November 20, 1867 in Medar sheet metal hammer; † June 10, 1948 in Biberwier ) was a German chemist and bacteriologist.

Life and work

Giemsa studied at the University of Leipzig pharmacy and mineralogy and chemistry in Berlin and bacteriology. Meantime he worked from 1895 to 1898 as a pharmacist in the German colonies in Africa. He moved in 1900 to Hamburg and took over the Chemical Division in the newly founded Hamburg Institute for marine and tropical diseases, today Bernhard -Nocht- Institute for Tropical Medicine. Giemsa was in 1914 awarded the title of professor in 1919, and read about chemotherapy at the University of Hamburg.

His field of work was mainly the tropical hygiene. Here he studied successfully in the field of new drugs and introduced new therapeutics. He developed as an improvement of the Romanowsky stain Giemsa stain for protozoa bears his name and is still used today. Giemsa was carrier of the Bernhard -Nocht Medal.

After the " seizure of power" of the Nazis, he was a member of the NSDAP since May 1933. On November 11, 1933, he was in Leipzig at the ceremony " with Adolf Hitler for the German people honor, freedom and justice! " Signatory to the " Confession of professors at German universities and colleges to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State."

His age time spent Giemsa from 1937 in Biberwier / Tyrol, where a street is named after him.