Rudolf Blasius

Rudolf Heinrich Paul Blasius (1842 to 1907) was a German physician, bacteriologist, naturalist and ornithologist from Braunschweig. He was the son of Johann Heinrich Blasius, a professor of natural history, and his brother Wilhelm became an ornithologist. He studied at the Collegium Carolinum and then studied medicine at Göttingen and Zürich, taking his degree at Göttingen in January 1866 with a thesis on the microstructure of bird eggs. After military service as a doctor and further training in Vienna he practised as a physician in Göttingen and later in Braunschweig, where he also taught at the university. Alongside his medical work he was an ornithologist of note, elected President of the International Ornithological Committee in 1884 and president of the German Ornithologists Society in 1900.