Karl Herxheimer (; 26 June 1861 – 6 December 1942) was a German-Jewish

dermatologist Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin.''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.'' Random House, Inc. 2001. Page 537. . It is a speciality with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist is a specialist medica ...

who was a native of

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

. He studied medicine at the universities of

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

, Strasbourg and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is a city in the region of Franconia in the north of the German state of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the ''Regierungsbezirk'' Lower Franconia. It spans the banks of the Main River. Würzburg ...

, receiving his doctorate in 1885 with a thesis on cerebral syphilis. Following graduation he worked as an assistant to Karl Weigert at the Institute of Pathology in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

, and to Albert Neisser at the university skin clinic in Breslau.Herxheimer, Karl
In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, , S. 727 f. He later worked with his older brother, Salomon Herxheimer (1841–1899) in Frankfurt, where in 1894, he became director of the municipal dermatology clinic. Along with

Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...

, he was instrumental in founding the University of Frankfurt. In 1914 he became a professor for skin and venereal diseases at the new university. In August 1942, at the age of 81, he was taken to the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination ca ...

, where he died a few months later.''Karl Herxheimer''
@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

Herxheimer is credited with providing an early description of acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans (Taylor's disease), which is a dermatological disorder associated with the later stages of

Lyme disease Lyme disease, also known as Lyme borreliosis, is a vector-borne disease caused by the ''Borrelia'' bacterium, which is spread by ticks in the genus ''Ixodes''. The most common sign of infection is an expanding red rash, known as erythema migran ...

. This condition is sometimes referred to as "Pick–Herxheimer disease", named along with co-discoverer Philipp Josef Pick (1834–1910). With Austrian dermatologist

Adolf Jarisch Adolf Jarisch (February 15, 1850 – March 21, 1902) was an Austrian dermatologist who specialized in the care of venereal disease. The Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, an inflammatory response that he noted following treatment for syphilis, is partia ...

(1850–1902), the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction ("herxing") is named, which is an inflammatory reaction to

Salvarsan Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan or compound 606, is a drug that was introduced at the beginning of the 1910s as the first effective treatment for syphilis, relapsing fever, and African trypanosomiasis. This organoarsenic compound was the fi ...

antibiotics An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention o ...

or mercury, when using these agents to treat syphilis.The Treatment of syphilis with Salvarsan
by Wilhelm Wechselmann The clinical pharmacologist

Andrew Herxheimer Andrew Herxheimer (4 November 1925 – 21 February 2016) was a German-born British clinical pharmacologist. He was "interested in all aspects of providing independent, unbiased, clear and concise information about therapeutic interventions to pro ...

was his great nephew.

Published works

* ''Über acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans''. Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis, Berlin, 1902, 61: 57-76. * ''Ueber eine bei Syphilitischen vorkommende Quecksilberreaktion''. Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, 1902, Berlin, 1902, 28: 895-897.

References

''Karl Herxheimer''
@

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herxheimer, Karl 1861 births 1942 deaths Scientists from Wiesbaden People from the Duchy of Nassau 19th-century German Jews German dermatologists University of Würzburg alumni University of Freiburg alumni University of Strasbourg alumni Goethe University Frankfurt faculty German people who died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto Jewish scientists Lyme disease researchers