Anton Weichselbaum

Anton Weichselbaum (1845 to 1920) was an Austrian pathologist and bacteriologist, among the first scientists to recognize how important bacteriology was for pathological anatomy. Born near the town of Langenlois, he took his medical doctorate in Vienna in 1869 and worked as an assistant to the pathological anatomist Josef Engel. He became associate professor of pathological histology and bacteriology in 1885, directed the pathological-anatomical institute of the University of Vienna from 1893 to 1916, and served as university rector in 1912. In 1887 he was the first to isolate the cause of cerebrospinal meningitis, a bacterium he named Diplococcus intracellularis meningitidis. He also did important research on tuberculosis, is credited with founding the first pulmonary health institute in Austria at Alland, and gave the first comprehensive description of local bone erosion in arthritis. His assistants included Karl Landsteiner and Anton Ghon.