August Hirsch

August Hirsch (4 October 1817 in Danzig to 28 January 1894 in Berlin) was a German physician and medical historian. He practiced in Danzig after studying at Berlin and Leipzig, and in 1863, in recognition of his studies on malarial fever and his Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologie, he was made professor at Berlin. In 1873 he was a member of the German Cholera Commission, studied conditions in Posen and West Prussia and published a report in 1874, and in 1879 and 1880 he studied the plague in Astrakhan and reported to his government. His writings include Die grossen Volkskrankheiten des Mittelalters, a revision of Hecker's collected writings, a history of ophthalmology, the three volume Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology, and, as editor, the six volume Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte aller Zeit. With Rudolf Virchow he edited the annual Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte und Leistungen der Medizin.