Theodor Escherich

Theodor Escherich ( born November 29, 1857 in Ansbach, † February 15, 1911 in Vienna ) was a German -Austrian pediatrician and bacteriologist Professor at the Universities of Graz and Vienna. He discovered the bacterium Escherichia coli ( E. coli), which was named after him in 1919, and some its properties.

Life and work

Family and Education

Theodor Escherich was born in Ansbach, the son of Kreismedizinalrats Ferdinand Escherich (1810-1888) and his second wife Maria Sophie Frederike von Stromer. The father made to be an excellent statistician for the health of his circle a name. The mother was the daughter of the Bavarian Supreme Karl Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach. When Theodor was five years old, his mother died and five years later, Ferdinand Escherich was to his former post as Kreismedizinalrat in Würzburg enable and married for the third time. At the age of twelve years, Theodore was sent to the Jesuit boarding school run by Stella Matutina in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, where he stayed for three years, then to complete on the Wurzburg his grammar school education at the High School in 1876. In the same year he began at the Julius- Maximilians -Universität Würzburg to study medicine, where he 1881 the medical license exam took off after semesters in Kiel and Berlin, with a score of one.

Medical career in Würzburg and Munich (1882-1890)

After completing a one and a half years of military service in a Munich hospital Escherich 1882 returned back to Würzburg to be second and later became the first assistant to the internist Carl Jakob Adolf Christian Gerhardt at the medical clinic of the Julius Hospital. Gerhardt was Escherich's PhD supervisor and suggested the topic for the dissertation before. On October 27, 1882 Escherich was awarded his doctorate for Dr. med. In the following years he undertook study trips to Vienna and Paris. In Vienna he attended lectures by Hermann Widerhofer and Alois Monti. Same time, he bacteriological research at the St. Anna Children's Hospital. Later in Paris he heard at the world-renowned neurologist Jean -Martin Charcot. In August 1884, he continued the research in Munich, where now Pediatrics was established as a department of the Faculty of Medicine to continue. In October 1884 he was sent by the Bavarian government to Naples to study the rampant cholera epidemic there.

Discovery of the Escherichia coli

In 1886, after intensive research in the laboratory Escherich published a monograph entitled The intestinal bacteria of the infant and its relationship to the physiology of digestion, which was submitted to the Faculty of Medicine in Munich as a post-doctoral thesis and Theodor Escherich made ​​it the leading bacteriologists in pediatrics. In this paper, Escherich described a bacterium which he called " bacterium coli commune " and was later named as " Escherichia coli ". The next four years working Escherich the first assistant to Heinrich Ranke in the Von Hauner Children's Hospital in Munich.

Professor in Graz and Vienna (1890-1911)

Escherich in 1890 was appointed professor of pediatrics at the Karl- Franzens- University of Graz, and in 1894 he became the third associate professor of medicine in this field. In 1902 he became professor of pediatrics in Vienna, where he led the St. Anna Children's Hospital.

Escherich died on 15 February 1911 following a stroke.

Escherich became famous in 1903 when he called the club " infant protection" to life and launched a large- scale campaign for self- feeding.

In 1919 in Vienna Dobling ( 19th district ) was named the Escherich alley after him. In the Ansbach Escherich street is named after him at the hospital.

Awards

Writings

• The intestinal bacteria of the infant and its relationship to the physiology of digestion. 1886 ( digitized )