Erich Hoffmann

Erich Hoffmann (25 April 1868 – 8 May 1959) was a German dermatologist who was a native of Witzmitz, Pomerania.

He studied medicine at the Berlin Military Academy, and was later a professor at the Universities of Halle and Bonn.

Hoffmann is remembered for his research performed with zoologist Fritz Schaudinn (1871-1906) at the Charité Clinic in Berlin. In 1905 Schaudinn and Hoffmann discovered the bacterium that was responsible for syphilis, a spiral-shaped spirochete called Treponema pallidum, which they first called Spirochaeta pallida.[1][2] The organism was removed from a papule in the vulva of a woman with secondary syphilis. The two doctors documented their findings in a treatise called Vorläufiger Bericht über das Vorkommen von Spirochaeten in syphilitischen Krankheitsprodukten und bei Papillome.[3]

Hoffmann left Germany during the era of National Socialism, but returned to Bonn after the war and established a laboratory. In the late 1940s he published two books about his life in medicine, titled "Wollen und Schaffen" and "Ringen um Vollendung".

  1. ^ Kohl, P. K.; Winzer, I. (February 2005). "[The 100 years since discovery of Spirochaeta pallida]". Der Hautarzt; Zeitschrift Fur Dermatologie, Venerologie, und Verwandte Gebiete. 56 (2): 112–115. doi:10.1007/s00105-004-0892-3. ISSN 0017-8470. PMID 15657727.
  2. ^ Souza, Elemir Macedo de (October 2005). "A hundred years ago, the discovery of Treponema pallidum". Anais Brasileiros de Dermatologia. 80: 547–548. doi:10.1590/S0365-05962005000600017. ISSN 0365-0596.
  3. ^ Fritz Richard Schaudinn, Erich Hoffmann: Vorläufiger Bericht über das Vorkommen von Spirochaeten in syphilitischen Krankheitsprodukten und bei Papillomen. Arbeiten aus dem kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamtes (Berlin), vol. 22, pp. 527–534, 1905.