August von Wassermann

August von Wassermann (born Feb. 21, 1866, Bamberg, Bavaria [Germany]—died March 16, 1925, Berlin, Ger.) was a German bacteriologist whose discovery of a universal blood-serum test for syphilis helped extend the basic tenets of immunology to diagnosis. “The Wassermann reaction,” in combination with other diagnostic procedures, is still employed as a reliable indicator for the disease.

Working at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin (1890–1913), Wassermann and the German dermatologist Albert Neisser developed (1906) a test for the antibody produced by persons infected with the protozoan Spirochaeta pallida (now known as Treponema pallidum), the causative agent of syphilis. In 1913 Wassermann became director of the department of experimental therapy at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute, Berlin-Dahlem, a position he held until his death. He is also noted for having devised diagnostic tests for tuberculosis and collaborated with the German bacteriologist Wilhelm Kolle in writing the Handbuch der pathogenen Mikroorganismen, 6 vol. (1903–09; “Handbook of Pathogenic Microorganisms”).