Wilhelm Kolle

Vocation

Notable

German bacteriologist and hygienist. He was the father of painter Helmut Kolle. Following studies of medicine at the Universities of Göttingen, Halle and Würzburg, he became an assistant to Robert Koch at the Institut für Infektionskrankheiten (Institute for Infectious Diseases) in Berlin (1893-97). In 1897-98 he performed research of rinderpest and leprosy in South Africa, and in 1900, on behalf of the Egyptian government, studied rinderpest in Sudan. In 1901 he became departmental head at the Institut für Infektionskrankheiten, followed by an appointment as professor of hygiene and bacteriology at the University of Bern (1906). As a military physician and hygienist duringWorld War I, he was highly successful in vaccination against diphtheria and cholera. From 1917 he was director of the Staatsinstituts für experimentelle Therapie and the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt am Main. Kolle made numerous contributions in the fields of serology, microbiology and chemotherapy. He is credited with the development of an anti-meningococcus serum, as well as a vaccine against rinderpest. He introduced an improved Salvarsan preparation for treatment of syphilis, and in 1896 developed a heat-inactivated cholera vaccine that was used extensively during the 20th century. He died 10 May 1935. Link to Wikipedia biography