100 YEARS OF CRYPTOCOCCOSIS - MEDICAL MYC OLOGY IN THE 19TH-CENTURY IN GREIFSWALD

Not later than 1842 medico-mycological investigations began at Greifsw ald in Germany following the appointment of Wilhelm Baum (1799-1883) t o the chair of surgery at the university. This is indicated by some th eses as well as by the discovery of the contagious characteristics of pityriasis versicolor by Carl Ferdinand Eichstedt (1816-1892) who foun d a fungus as the cause (1846), which was named Microsporon furfur lat er (C. Robin 1853). In 1868 the physician (Karl) Friedrich Mosler (183 1-1911) published clinical-mycological studies and investigations on a nimal feeding with yeasts. Some time later (1870) Friedrich Grohe (183 0-1886) and his assistants Alwin R. A. Block (1843-?) and M. R. Roth o f the Pathological Institute described results of transmission-studies with,,Aspergillus glaucus, Penicillium glaucum and yeast''. The succe ssor to the chair, Paul Grawitz (1850-1932), also published results of his own mycological investigations. Finally, on 7 July, 1894, during the evening lecture of the Greifswald Medical Society Abraham Buschke (1868-1943) from the Hospital of Surgery gave a talk ,,on a peculiar d isease caused by coccidia'' followed by the talk of pathologist Otto B usse (1867-1922) on a ,,demonstration of a pathogenic coccidia species ''. Busse's subsequent publications are the first proper descriptions of cryptococcosis (1894 f). Nevertheless, Cryptococcus neoformans has been named in connection with F. Sanfelice, whose results were publish ed later (1895).