Arthur Nicolaier
Arthur Nicolaier (4 February 1862 in Cosel/Koźle - 28 August 1942 in Berlin) was a German Jewish internist. He hailed from an Upper Silesian Jewish family and studied medicine in Heidelberg, Berlin and Göttingen. He received his doctoral degree from Göttingen in 1885. His thesis was entitled "Beiträge zur Aetiologie des Wundstarrkrampfes“ (Contributions to the etiology of tetanus). He was a senior physician at the Göttingen university hospital 1897-1900 and then moved to Berlin. In 1921, he was appointed as an extraordinary professor of internal medicine at Charité. He was removed from office in 1933 when the Nazis passed laws that made it illegal for Jews to be civil servants. He committed suicide [how?] in 1942 when he learned that he was about to be deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Scientific Contributions
As an assistant to Carl Flügge in Göttingen, Nicolaier discovered Clostridium tetani, the bacterium that causes tetanus, in 1884. He was the first to use hexamethylentetramin (Urotropin) for treating urinary infections.[1]
References
- ^ Dr. Wilhelm Foerst (Hrsg.): Ullmanns Encyklopädie der technischen Chemie. Urban & Schwarzberg München-Berlin 1954, 3. Aufl. Bd. 5 S.229.