Albert Ludwig Neisser

Neisser, Albert Ludwig 

Born Jan. 22, 1855, in Schweidnitz; died July 30, 1916, in Breslau, now Wroclaw, Poland. German dermatologist and venereologist.

In 1877, Neisser graduated from the medical faculty in Breslau. From 1882 he was a professor and director of the Clinic for Skin and Venereal Diseases in Breslau. In 1879 he discovered the causative agent of gonorrhea, the gonococcus. Neisser confirmed the existence of the causative agent of leprosy by proposing a new method for processing and staining specimens of leprous tissue. He organized two scientific research expeditions (1905–06 and 1907) to Batavia (on the island of Java). There he continued the experimental study of syphilis that had been initiated by I. I. Mechnikov and E. Roux in the laboratory. Primates of the suborder Anthropoidea were used In collaboration with A. Wasserman, Neisser developed a serological test for syphilis, now known as the Wasserman reaction. In 1902, Neisser founded the German Society for the Control of Venereal Diseases and became the society’s first chairman.

WORKS

Über eine der Gonorrhöe eigenthömliche Micrococcusform. Berlin, 1879.
Über die Bedeutung der Lupuskrankheit und die Notwendigkeit ihrer Bekämpfung. Leipzig, 1908.
Syphilis und Salvarsan. Berlin, 1913.
Die Geschlechtskrankheiten und ihre Bekämpfung . . . . Berlin, 1916.

REFERENCE

Iordan, A. “Albert Neisser.” Russkii vestnik dermatologii, 1924, vol. 1, no. 3.