Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer
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'''Richard Friedrich Johannes Pfeiffer''' ([[March 27]], [[1858]] – [[September 15]] [[1945]]) was a [[Germany|German]] [[physician]] and [[bacteriologist]].<ref>
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|url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/769487
|title=JSTOR: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 2 (Nov., 1956 ), pp. 237-247
|publisher=www.jstor.org
|accessdate=2008-05-13
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Pfeiffer was born in [[Zduny]], [[Province of Posen]], and died in [[Lądek-Zdrój|Bad Landeck]].
Pfeiffer is remembered for his many fundamental discoveries in [[immunology]] and [[bacteriology]], particularly for the phenomenon of bacteriolysis. In 1894 he found that live [[cholera]] [[bacteria]] could be injected without ill effects into guinea pigs previously immunised against [[cholera]], and that [[blood plasma]] from these animals added to live [[cholera]] [[bacteria]] caused them to become motionless and to lyse. This could be inhibited by previously heating the [[blood plasma]]. He called this bacteriolysis and it became known as the Pfeiffer Phenomenon, or Isayev-Pfeiffer phenomenon.
Working with [[Robert Koch]] in Berlin he intellectually and experimentally conceived the concept of [[endotoxin]] as a heat-stable bacterial poison responsible for the [[pathophysiology|pathophysiological]] consequences of certain infectious diseases. [[Endotoxin]] and anti-endotoxin antibodies have since then fascinated researchers of many disciplines, particularly in the fields of diagnosis, prevention, and therapy of severe [[Gram-negative]] infections.
Pfeiffer was a pioneer in [[typhoid]] [[vaccination]]. He discovered the specific bacteria-dissolving immune bodies in cholera and typhus. The British pathologist [[Almroth Wright]] is generally credited with the initiation of [[typhoid]] [[vaccination]] in 1896. His claims of priority were challenged as early as 1907 in favour of Richard Pfeiffer. A review of the original literature of the 1890s and the early 1900s revealed that several groups were working on [[typhoid]] [[vaccine]] at the same time and that the credit for the initiation of [[typhoid]] [[vaccine]] studies should be shared by these two great researchers.
In 1892 he isolated what he thought was the causative agent of [[influenza]]. The culprit, according to Pfeiffer, was a small rod-shaped [[bacterium]] that he isolated from the noses of flu-infected patients . He dubbed it Bacillus influenzae (or Pfeiffer's bacillus), which was later called [[Haemophilus influenzae]]. Few doubted the validity of this discovery, in large part because bacteria had been shown to cause other human diseases, including anthrax, cholera, and plague. When history's deadliest influenza pandemic began in 1918, most scientists believed that Pfeiffer's bacillus caused influenza. With the lethality of this outbreak (which killed an estimated 20 to 100 million worldwide) came urgency—researchers around the world began to search for Pfeiffer's bacillus in patients, hoping to develop antisera and vaccines that would protect against infection. In many patients, but not all, the bacteria were found. Failures to isolate B. influenzae (now known as Haemophilus influenzae) were largely chalked up to inadequate technique, as the bacteria were notoriously difficult to culture. The first blow to Pfeiffer's theory came from Peter Olitsky and Frederick Gates at [[Rockefeller University|The Rockefeller Institute]]. Olitsky and Gates took nasal secretions from patients infected with the 1918 flu and passed them through Berkefeld filters, which exclude [[bacteria]]. The infectious agent — which caused lung disease in rabbits — passed through the filter, suggesting that it was not a [[bacterium]]. Although the duo had perhaps isolated the [[influenza]] [[virus]] (which they nevertheless referred to as an atypical bacterium called Bacterium pneumosintes), other researchers could not reproduce their results.
In 1896 he isolated micrococcus catarrhalis that is the cause of [[laryngitis]]. M catarrhalis also causes [[bronchitis]], and [[pneumonia]] in children and adults with underlying chronic lung disease. It is occasionally a cause of [[meningitis]].
Richard Pfeiffer also invented a universal staining for [[histological]] preparations.
Pfeiffer studied at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie in [[Berlin]] from 1875 to 1879. After completing his studies he was conferred doctor of medicine in 1880 and subsequently served as an army physician and [[bacteriologist]] until 1889. He was a student of [[Robert Koch]] (1843-1910), and from 1887 to 1891 worked as Koch's assistant in the Institute of Hygiene in Berlin. In 1891 he was entrusted with the leadership of the scientific department of the Institute of Infectious Diseases in Berlin.
In 1897 Pfeiffer joined the German expedition under [[Robert Koch]] to India to investigate the [[Bubonic plague|plague]]. The following year he went to Italy with Koch to do research on [[Malaria]]. He moved to [[Königsberg]] to enter the chair of hygiene in 1899, succeeding Erwin von Esmarch (1855-1915). He remained in that city until 1909, when he moved on to the same chair in [[Breslau]]. Pfeiffer retired there as emeritus in 1925.
==References==
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{{BD|1858|1945|Pfeiffer, Richard Friedrich Johannes}}
[[Category:German scientists]]
[[Category:Influenza researchers]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Posen]]
[[de:Richard Pfeiffer]]
[[pl:Richard Pfeiffer]]