Otto Michael Ludwig Leichtenstern

Otto Michael Ludwig Leichtenstern (1845 to 1900) was a German internist, born in Ingolstadt. He received his doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1869 and then worked there as an assistant in clinical medicine under Karl von Pfeufer and Joseph von Lindwurm. After the death of Felix von Niemeyer he served as interim head of the medical clinic at the University of Tübingen, and from 1879 until 1900 he was head physician of internal medicine at the city hospital in Cologne. He is remembered for publishing articles on almost every facet of medicine. In helminthology he contributed investigations of hookworm (Ancylostoma duodenale). In 1898 he suspected that the compound 2-naphthylamine was involved in human bladder tumorigenesis. With Adolph Strümpell he gave his name to Strümpell-Leichtenstern encephalitis, a disease also known as acute hemorrhagic encephalitis.