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Copyright of Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

After his medical studies in Vienna and Graz, Georg von Hofmann-Wellenhof, born in 1860 in Vienna, became an assistant at the Pathology Institute at the University of Graz. In 1887, he described a bacterium in the pharynx which resembled diphtheria bacillus. As it was not pathogenic in animal experiments, he named it Bacillus pseudodiphthericus, now Corynebacterium pseudodiphthericum. After moving to the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Vienna, he isolated a strain of glanders bacterium from a deceased patient in 1889. Because at the time there was nearly no knowledge of the virulence of glanders bacilli in man, von Hofmann-Wellenhof carried out animal experiments. During this time, he happened to contract a lethal glanders infection, probably via the respiratory tract. Autopsy revealed glanders abscesses in the respiratory tract, mediastinum, skin and muscles.

During the plague epidemic 1897 in Bombay a medical commission of the Austrian Academy of Sciences carried out clinical, pathologic-anatomical, -histological and bacteriological investigations. With the plague bacteria strains brought to Vienna bacteriological investigations and infection experiments with various species of animals were done. Finishing the animal investigations, the laboratory helper Franz Barisch caught a plague infection unnoticedly and four days later, on October 18th, 1898, he died with a heavy pulmonary affection. His treatment has been carried out by a delegate of the commission, Dozent Dr. Hermann Franz Müller, and two nurses. On October 20th one of them, Albine Pecha, fell ill. She and Dr. Müller immediately were isolated. On the same day, Dr. Müller showed symptoms of plague pneumonia. He died three days later, on October 23rd. Pecha's pulmonic plague went varying heavy and was prolonged probably by injections of plague serum. She died on October 30th, 1898.