Clemens von Pirquet

Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet, actually: Clemens Peter Freiherr von Pirquet of Cesenatico, called de Merdaga ( born May 12, 1874 in Hirschstetten in Vienna, † February 28, 1929 in Vienna ) was an Austrian pediatrician and university professor. He is known for his research in the fields of bacteriology and immunology.

Career

Clemens von Pirquet was descended from an ancient patrician family of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège; Peter Pirquet called de Merdaga was in 1818 awarded the Maria Theresa Order, and had for the family baron obtained ( predicate of Cesenatico ). Clement of Pirquets father, Peter Zeno von Pirquet, was representative of the "land -owning party" and played a major role as Imperial Council and Member of Parliament in the Austrian Parliament. The mother, Flora Baroness von Pereira - Arnstein, was born into a Jewish Viennese banking family. His brother is the younger by six years Guido von Pirquet who taught as a rocket engineer in the United States at universities. Clemens completed his school education in the Scots College in Vienna, in the College Kalksburg and Vienna Theresianumgasse, where he graduated in 1892. With the intention to become a Jesuit priest, he first spent two years studying theology at the University of Innsbruck and from 1893 Philosophy in Leuven. He completed his studies with a master's from, but changed his career aspirations and started in 1895, much to the dismay of his parents, with the study of medicine in Vienna, where he continued in Königsberg and then in Graz, where he received his doctorate in 1900.

After graduation, Clemens von Pirquet began his pediatric training at Otto Heubner (1843-1926) at the Berlin Charité. In Berlin he also met his future, Hanover-born wife, Maria Christine van Husen ( b. 1878 ), know. It was founded in 1902 at the Vienna St. Anna Children's Hospital Medical Assistant under Theodor Escherich ( 1857-1911 ). At the same time he worked under Rudolf Kraus (1868-1932) at the University Institute of serotherapy. After his habilitation in 1908, he was already so well known that he was called to America, where he spent two years was a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

In 1910 he moved to the Pediatric Department in Wroclaw. In 1911, he was the successor of the late Theodor Escherich and took over the chair of pediatrics at the Vienna University Children's Hospital, where he worked until his death. The late 1920s, Clemens von Pirquet was such a prominent and esteemed personality that he has been nominated for presidential candidate of the First Republic, which he conceived himself rather than taken seriously as an homage. It can be assumed that his private life was less happy because his wife was not accepted by his family, was mentally ill and barbiturate - dependent. At the peak of his career with his (possibly terminally ill ) woman in Vienna took Clemens Freiherr von Pirquet on 28 February 1929 at the age of 54 years life together by taking cyanide.

His successor as Head of the University Children's Hospital, Franz Hamburger ( 1874-1954 ).

Services

As early as 1903 deposited Clemens von Pirquet in the kk Academy of Sciences his work " On the theory of infectious diseases ". He described in 1905 together with his colleague Béla Schick ( 1877-1967 ) for the first time the serum sickness. In their classic monograph " The serum sickness " they also dealt intensively with the " time factor " ( incubation period ), which lies between the first injection of an antiserum and the occurrence of serum sickness. In 1906 Clemens von Pirquet the term "allergy" in the medical language. He recognized it as the first, that antibodies can mediate protective immune responses not only but can also be a cause of hypersensitivity reactions. In 1907, developed by Pirquet a method for the (early ) diagnosis of tuberculosis, the tuberculin skin test, which was also referred to as Pirquet reaction. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize for this achievement, he has never received. 1911 took over Clemens von Pirquet the newly built University Children's Hospital in Vienna, where he founded a special education department in the same year, the first dealt with the world of clinical research and treatment of organic brain damage and behavioral problems in children.

Because of his interest in issues of infant feeding and its good contacts he organized 1919-1921 Austria far the offtake of the American children's charity and was Chairman of the League of Nations Committee for infant care. In the course of his employment with diet he developed his own diet system called NEM system ( Nähreinheit milk).

Works (selection)

• - Béla Schick: The serum sickness. Deuticke, Vienna 1905.
• Allergy. In: Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift. 30.1906 tape, ZDB - ID 200445-8. Finsterlin, Munich 1906, pp. 1457-1458. ( The first mention of the term "allergy ").
• Clinical studies on vaccination and vakzinale allergy. In: Munich medical weekly. 1906, p 53 -. Leipzig, 1907.

• An Outline of the Pirquet System of Nutrition. (English). W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia 1922.