GRUBY, DAVID

GRUBY, DAVID (1810–1898), physician, born in Novi Sad, then Hungary; one of the pioneers of modern microbiology and parasitology. Gruby left home while young and moved to Budapest, where he worked in a Jewish restaurant. As a Jew, he could not be accepted in a high school, so he stood outside the classroom door and listened to lessons. Eventually one of the teachers took pity on him, and arranged his admittance. Gruby studied medicine in Vienna and received his degree in 1834. Despite his being a Jew, he was appointed a surgeon at the university medical school. The university proposed that he be made a professor, on condition that he would become converted to Christianity. Gruby rejected this proposal, left Vienna, and settled in Paris (1839). He was given a post at the Museum of Nature, and lectured there on normal and morbid pathology. From 1841 to 1852 he made a number of discoveries, from which evolved the new branch of mycology in both human and veterinary medicine, advancing the development of microbiology and parasitology. Gruby was the first to prove experimentally that a fungus was likely to be the cause of a specific disease in man. He was also one of the first to investigate parasitic worms and their life cycles. One of his most important discoveries, made in 1843, which represented a turning point in the history of microbiology, was the first description of the flagellate parasites of frogs' blood and tissues. Gruby called these parasites "trepanosomes." In the same year, working with the French veterinarian Delafond, he discovered microfilaria in the circulating blood of infested frogs, thus opening a new avenue for the investigation of filaria worms which constitute a widespread disease agent for man in tropical climates. He also did research on comparative anatomy, experimental physiology, experiments with chloroform and ether in anesthesia immediately after its introduction in Europe. In addition he investigated the composition of the lymph, the microscopic structure of the intestinal epithelium, and the treatment of war wounds. He was also one of the first to prepare microscopic photographs. From 1852 onward, he devoted his time to his large private practice. He was the private physician of Chopin, Liszt, Heine, and Dumas. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kisch, in: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 44 (1954), 193–226. (Saul Aaron Adler)