Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer, 1858-1945

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Richard Pfeiffer, one of the pioneers of bacteriology and an assistant of Robert Koch, was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1928 at the age of 70. Twenty-seven years later inquiry revealed that he was still alive in 1945 behind the Iron Curtain, but that since then all trace of him had been lost. It is now known that he died on 15 September 1945 aged 87 years. Richard Pfeiffer was born on 27 March 1858 at Zduny, Posen, the eldest son of Otto Pfeiffer, a clergyman, and received his early education at Schweidnitz whither the family had removed. He passed out of the Gymnasium at the age of 17. He always had the ambition to study the natural sciences and medicine, but the family resources made a University career impossible. He was, however, fortunate in being accepted as a pupil in the exclusive ‘Pepiniere’ (afterwards the Kaiser Wilhelm Akademie). The purpose of this institution was to train boys to enter the Army Medical Service, and a number of its pupils had become leading bacteriologists. Education at the ‘Pepiniere’ was therefore a distinct step towards a career in medical science.

This publication has 30 references indexed in Scilit: