Karl Joseph Eberth

Karl Joseph Eberth
Born	21 September 1835 Würzburg
Died	2 December 1926 (aged 91) Berlin
Nationality	German
Fields	Bacteriology, Pathology
Alma mater	University of Würzburg
Doctoral students	Oswald Bumke
Known for	Discovery of the typhoid bacillus

Karl Joseph Eberth (21 September 1835 – 2 December 1926) was a German pathologist and bacteriologist who was a native of Würzburg.

Biography

In 1859 he earned his doctorate at the University of Würzburg, and became an assistant to anatomist Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905). In 1869 he became a full professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Zurich, and from 1881 until his retirement in 1911, he was a professor at the University of Halle.

In 1880 Eberth described a bacillus that he suspected was the cause of typhoid.^[1] In 1884 pathologist Georg Theodor August Gaffky (1850–1918) confirmed Eberth's findings,^[2] and the organism was given names such as "Eberthella typhi", "Eberth's bacillus" and "Gaffky-Eberth bacillus". Today the bacillus that causes typhoid fever goes by the scientific name of Salmonella enterica subspecies enterica serovar Typhi.^[3][4]

Associated eponyms

• "Eberth's lines": Microscopic lines that appear between the cells of the myocardium when stained with silver nitrate.^[5]
• "Eberth's perithelium": an incomplete layer of connective tissue cells encasing the blood capillaries.^[6]

Selected works

• Untersuchungen über nematoden, (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, 1863).
• Zur Kenntnis der Bacteritischen Mykosen, (Leipzig : Engelmann, 1872).^[7]
• Zur kenntniss der blutplättchen bei den niederen wirbelthieren, (Leipzig, Engelmann, 1887).
• Die Thrombose nach Versuchen und Leichenbefunden, with Curt Schimmelbusch, (Stuttgart, 1888).
• Die männlichen Geschlechtsorgane, (Jena, Fischer, 1904).^[8]

See also

• Pathology
• List of pathologists

References

Parts of this article are based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.

1. See:
   • C. J. Eberth (1880) "Die Organismen in den Organen bei Typhus abdominalis" (Organisms in the [internal] organs in cases of Typhus abdominalis), Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, 81 : 58–74.
   • C. J. Eberth (1881) "Neue Untersuchungen über den Bacillus des Abdominaltyphus" (New investigations into the bacilli of abdominal typhoid), Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie, 83 : 486–501.
   • Eberth's findings were verified by Robert Koch: Koch, Robert (1881) "Zur Untersuchung von pathogenen Organismen" (On the investigation of pathogenic organisms), Mitteilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, 1 : 1–49 ; see p. 45.
2. Gaffky (1884) "Zur Aetiology des Abdominaltyphus" (On the etiology of abdominal typhus), Mittheilungen aus dem Kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte, 2 : 372-420.
3. Physician and surgeon, Volume 14 by J. W. Keating
4. Journal of Nepal Health Research Council Vol.3 No.2 October 2005 Antibiotic Sensitivity Pattern of Salmonella Species Isolated from Blood Culture
5. Mondofacto Dictionary (definition of eponym)
6. Mondofacto Dictionary (definition of eponym)
7. IDREF.fr bibliography
8. The Online Books Page published works