Carl Josef Eberth, a protégé of Virchow, is mainly remembered for his discovery of the typhoid bacillus (Salmonella typhosa, previously Eberthella typhosa) by means of histological techniques. He made this discovery while assisting Robert Koch in the latter's Berlin laboratory.

Eberth began his career at the university at Wurzburg where he earned an MD in 1859 and completed three years of training at the Pathological Institute. Shifting to the study of histology, Eberth next completed his Habilitation at the Institute of Comparative Anatomy, also in Wurzburg. In 1874, he moved to Zurich, where he continued his research and teaching until being called to a professorship of comparative anatomy and histology at Halle in 1881. In 1895, Eberth took over the directorship of the Pathological Institute at Halle and remained in this post until his death in 1911.

In addition to his scientific contributions to knowledge of typhoid, anthrax, and diptheria, as well as his contributions to the study of physiological processes such as blood clotting and amyloid deposition, Eberth played an important social role in the development of bacteriology, as he was one of the few scientists who brought the study of bacteria, as pioneered by Pasteur, to the German-speaking states.

Bibliography

Brieger, Gerth. "Eberth, Carl Joseph [Josef]." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008, IV, 275-277.


Created 15 February 2017

Last modified 24 February 2023