Adolf Jarisch

Adolf Jarisch (1850 to 1902) was a dermatologist of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who specialized in the care of venereal disease. Born in Vienna, he studied medicine there and worked in the dermatology clinic of Ferdinand von Hebra. In 1888 he became an associate professor of dermatology and syphilology at the University of Innsbruck, in 1892 he succeeded Eduard Lipp as chair of the dermatology clinic at the University of Graz, and in 1901 he gained a full professorship there. He noticed that some syphilis patients fell ill, with fever, nausea and vomiting, and that their skin lesions worsened immediately after treatment with mercury, before the lesions abated and healed over two to three days. That inflammatory response is the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction, named jointly with the German-Jewish dermatologist Karl Herxheimer. He also wrote the influential book Die Hautkrankheiten on skin disorders. His son, Adolf Jarisch Jr., became a noted pharmacologist.