WASSERMANN, AUGUST VON

WASSERMANN, AUGUST VON (1866–1925), bacteriologist and immunologist. Born in Bamberg, he studied medicine and worked initially at the Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin, under Robert Koch. In 1906 he was appointed head of the Serum Department in the institute, and in 1913, head of the Institute of Experimental Medicine at Dahlem near Berlin. Wassermann was one of the founders of immunology, his great discovery being the reaction for the sero-diagnosis of syphilis, which bears his name. This test, which he published in 1906 together with Albert Neisser and Carl Bruck, became one of the most important methods of the sero-diagnosis, and Wassermann used it to prove the syphilitic nature of the tabes dorsalis and progressive paralysis. He developed specific antisera for determining the origin of proteins and blood cells originating from different animals; he also investigated, with paul ehrlich , methods for the determination of the potency of therapeutic sera. He co-edited the first encyclopedia of medical bacteriology and immunology, Handbuch der pathogenen Mikroorganismen (1903–13). In 1913 he was ennobled. Throughout his life he remained linked to Judaism. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 252–3; W. Bullock, History of Bacteriology (1938; repr. 1960). (Aryeh Leo Olitzki)