Zinsser, Hans

Early years

Zinsser was born in New York , in a family of German immigrants who left Germany because of their support for socialist uprisings in the country. Hans's father was a great industrial chemist, which gave the family a good fortune. Hans was brought up in this way on an intellectual cultural plane, he often spent the summer in Europe, had private tutors, rode well, played the violin and was fluent in several languages. In 1878, he graduated from Timothy Dwight High School in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Higher Education

He entered Columbia University and first studied in the field of comparative literature, in the corresponding department, which he did under the influence of George Woodberry, professor of this department. A year after graduating from school, Zinsser, together with a close friend, William A. Bradley (years of life - 1878-1939), published a small book of poems. But the practical need for a career that would provide a livelihood was the main consideration, which led Zinsser to enroll in medical school at this university in 1899. The opportunities for paid work as a literary scholar were doubtful, but medicine could allow him to pursue his interests in science and at the same time earn a living.

Zinsser received a bachelor 's degree from Columbia University, later a master's and doctorate in medicine in 1903. His master's thesis was devoted to the study of the early stages of mouse embryology , but he also carried out additional work on bacteriology , which became his first scientific publication. It was devoted to the study of the effect of radium on bacteria .

Career

From 1903 to 1905 he worked as a physician at the Roosevelt Hospital (New York), and after working there for two years, he joined his fellow practitioner in a small private general medicine practice in New York. In 1905, he married Rabe Gandfort Kunz, they had two children - Hans Gandfort and Gretel. In 1906, Zinsser developed a culture medium and an easy way to grow anaerobic microorganisms. During 1907-1910, he was an assistant pathologist at St. Luke's Hospital, and since 1908, due to his low salary in previous jobs, he became an instructor in bacteriology at Columbia University. In 1910, he headed the bacteriology department at Stanford University , a professor there in 1911. Since 1913, he returned to Columbia University, where he became a professor in the department of bacteriology and immunology. He took part in the work of the Red Cross Commission in Serbia on the study of epidemic typhus during the First World War , served in the American Army Medical Corps. In 1923, as part of the Red Cross Commission, he traveled to Russia, where he studied the situation with epidemic typhus. Since 1923 - at Harvard Medical School as head of the department (department) of bacteriology and immunology. In 1931, he studied the situation of epidemic typhus in Mexico City. Then he wrote to the famous French scientist, Nobel laureate Charles Nicol , that he considers at least three types of typhoid fever that cause rickettsia .

Achievements

After examining the situation in New York and Boston, Zinsser noted that sporadic typhus, or Brill's disease, occurs mainly among immigrants from the USSR and that cases of this disease were easy. He suggested that these cases were a relapse of typhoid and not the result of new infections. At the same time, he noted that there is still endemic typhus , which is relatively easy and may resemble Brill's disease.

He conducted further fundamental research on the etiology of epidemic typhus, and together with Ruiz Castañeda, he found antibodies against the pathogen in the blood of patients. Later, in 1934, Zinsser developed a vaccine that protects against this disease, which is still used in medical practice. He cultivated a large number of rickettsia on chicken embryos. After this, the pathogens were neutralized, and then the dead culture was administered to volunteers who noted the appearance of protective antibodies. From his work it is clear that he first discovered in the pathogens those substances that today are called polysaccharides . He also made a great contribution to the study of the reactions of antigen- antibodies, pathogenesis in rheumatic fever and the morphological properties of viruses .

He was an assistant bacteriologist Philip Giss (years of life - 1868-1913), and was his co-author in writing a textbook on bacteriology ( English Text Book of Bacteriology ), which has survived more than 20 reprints. The main publication of Zinsser is considered his popular science book “ Rats, Lice and History ” ( English Rats, Lice and History ), which was published in 1935. In it, he vividly described everything known at that time in relation to epidemic typhus. This book has survived many reprints in the future.

He also continued his literary work. During the years 1928-1940, he regularly published poetry in Atlantic Monthly under the pseudonym Protocol. In 1942, after the death of Zinsser, these verses were reprinted in the collection.

In 1926, he was president of the American Society of Bacteriologists.

Recent years

In 1938, Zinsser went to China to work at Beijing Medical College with his former student Sam Zee. Together, they studied typhus in the country and produced enough rickettsia to prepare the vaccine. During a voyage back to the United States, Zinsser realized that he was ill, and suspected he had leukemia , which was confirmed when he returned to Boston. This prompted him to write the memoirs “I Remember Him”, which he conducted in a third person. They were published in 1940 in Atlanta immediately after his death.

• Bradley, William A. and Zinsser, Hans. Amicitia amorque. Privately printed. 1901
• Hiss, PH, Jr., and Zinsser, H. A Textbook of Bacteriology. First edition. New York: D. Appleton and Co .; 1910.
• Zinsser, H. Infection and Resistance, First Edition. New York: Macmillan; 1914.
• Zinsser H, Grinell FB. Further studies on bacterial allergy: allergic reactions to the hemolytic streptococcus. J Immunol. 1925; 10: 725-30.
• H. Zinsser Rats, lice and history. Boston: Little, Brown & Co; 1935.
• Zinsser, H. As I Remember Him. The Biography of RS Boston: Little, Brown and Co .; 1940.
• Zinsser, H. Spring, Summer and Autumn, Poems. New York: Alfred A. Knopf; 1942.

• Whonamedit? - A dictionary of medical eponyms. Hans Zinsser [1]
• "Zinsser, Hans." National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. New York: James T. White Company. 1950. Volume XXXVI, years 35-36. (eng.)
• WC Summers Hans Zinsser: a tale of two cultures. Yale J Biol Med. 1999 Sep-Oct; 72 (5): 341-347. (eng.)
• Wolbach SB. Hans Zinsser [1878-1940]. Biogr Mem Natl Acad Sci. 1948; 24: 323-60. (eng.)
• Gerald Weissmann Rats, Lice, and Zinsser Vol. 11, No. 3 March 2005 (English)
• Biography of hans zinsser
• National Academy of Sciences: Biographical Memoirs for Hans Zinsser
• Hans Zinsser Papers at The Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library, Harvard Medical School.