Johann Peter Frank

Johann Peter Frank (1745 to 1821) was a German medical doctor and hygienist, born at Rodalben, who began in theology and took his medical doctorate in 1766. He served as physician to the prince-bishop of Speyer, taught at Göttingen, then at Pavia, where he also became sanitary inspector general of Lombardy and reformed medical teaching and practice. Later he organised the sanitary service of the Austrian army, directed the main hospital in Vienna, taught at Vilnius, served Czar Alexander I as personal physician, and finished his career at the University of Vienna. His life work was the nine volume System einer vollständigen medicinischen Polizey, a complete system of medical policy covering sanitation, water supply, maternal and child welfare, food safety and more, which makes him a founder of social medicine and public health. He is also credited with first describing the clinical difference between diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus.