Theodor A. E. Klebs (1834-1913, Asheville, NC)
KLEBS, Theodor A. Edwin, Asheville, N.C., was born February 6, 1834, in Koenigsberg, Prussia, was educated in Koenigsberg, Yena, Würtzburg and Berlin, where he passed the usual examinations in the years from 1855 to 1857.
Upon the completion of his studies he qualified himself in the University of Koenigsburg as privat-docent for pathological anatomy, a subject in which he had become especially interested while studying with Virchow who was professor of pathology at Würtsburg during the years Dr. Klebs studied there. His interest in pathology and admiration for Professor Virchow caused him subsequently to accept the position of assistant to Professor Virchow. Although a rich material was now at his disposal. he still felt that pathological anatomy was not enough for the full appreciation of the nature of disease, a conviction he had already obtained through his histological studies upon tuberculosis of the intestinal canal, (Diss De mutationibus quae in intestino inveniuntur tuberculosis, Berlin, 1857) which showed the insufficiency of purely histological investigations, and that beyond the cellular changes, something more must be present as the primary cause of disease, which, with the then available method of investigations, was impossible to find.
His subsequent demonstration of Psoropermes in the interior of intestinal epithelial cells and of the thereupon depending hypertrophy of these cells showed the young scientist the right path and led him to the conviction that the cellular theory of Virchow was inadequate, and that for the production of pathological changes of the cell itself, external influences must exist. Further influenced through the labors of Henle, Mühry, and others, he furnished the first proof of his belief that living organisms only, could cause structural changes in the living tissue, by his demonstration that in pyelo-nephritis following purulent cystitis the former is preceded by the presence of micro-cocci in the uiniferous tubules. This was the first demonstration that suppuration is not simply the result of irritation, but that it is due to micro-organisms contrary to, or perhaps better, supplementary to, the teachings of Broussais and Virchow, (communicated prior to 1865 in his work on Pathological Anatomy), a discovery which furnished the anatomical basis for the subsequent labors of Lister.
Further confirmations thereof were furnished by the labors of Professor Klebs during the Franco-Prussian war, where with the large material at his disposal in the military barracks at Karlsruhe, he had opportunity to confirm this highly important fact in all accidental wound-processes which he examined for this purpose. (Socin and Klebs, Kriegs-Chirurg. Erfahrungen Th. 2, 1872). His views upon the subject and of its general significance were communicated in an address before the Bern Medical Society, August 17, 1871, and published in the Schweizer Correspondenz Blatt in 1872.
His further labors during that period comprising twenty-one numbers must be considered as preliminary, a number upon normal and pathological histology showing the finer structure of tissues, nerves, nostreated muscles, ovaries, and also the impossibility of drawing correct conclusions from histological changes alone, as to the significance of disease processes which he particularly demonstrated in communications on the subjects of ophthalmology, tumors, and intoxications.
It was, however, particularly his study of an epidemic of cerebro-spinal meningitis which showed him conclusively the changes resulting from infectious inflammations and their characteristics (Milzschwellung and fettige Entartung der grossen Unterleibs-drusen, Virchow's Arch. B 24.)
Experimental investigations by his pupils of that time completed these labors in various directions. Thus F.W. Zahn, now professor in the University of Geneva, showed in the laboratory of Professor Klebs in Bern, that it is possible to delay the usually prompt occurring suppuration of the exposed mesentery of frogs, if infection with micro-organisms are excluded. F. Tiegel, subsequently professor in Tokio, showed at that time the fever-producing properties of staphylococci and streptococci which Professor Klebs had designated as Microsporon septicum; and Sapalsky (Würzburg, 1872) demonstrated by calorimetric experiments that in septic infection the heat production is increased.
The method of Tiegel for the separation of microorganisms and for the demonstration of their exclusive properties, was made use of by Pasteur ten years later for the same purpose in his labors with anthrax bacilli.
The many contributions which followed in the following decade to these fundamental demonstrations number about thirty and include labors upon the subjects of nearly all infectious diseases in their relation to specific micro-organisms. In this time he published also his large work Handbuch der path. Anatomie, (1866-'76); the greater number of his smaller publications is found in the Archiv of experimental Pathology and Pharmacology, published by him jointly with Schmiedeberg and Naunyn.
More general subsequent contributions giving his views upon the relation of bacteria to disease are contained in addresses before the association of German naturalists, Munich, 1878, and Cassel, 1879, the first upon the changes in Medical Science, and the second upon Cellular Pathology.
From 1887-'89 Professor Klebs published the first two volumes of his work on General Pathology; the third volume is to be published when the pending questions of specific medications are more fully settled.
His labors in bacteriology began at its earliest development, and the earlier ones belong to a period when the subject was in its infancy, lacking the perfection in methods and technique towards which he and others, especially Koch, have since contributed.
From 1866 to 1872, he was professor of general pathology and pathological anatomy in the University of Bern; 1872-'73, he held the chair of his former teacher Virchow in the University of Wurzburg; and from 1873 to l882 he was professor of pathological anatomy in the University of Prague; and from that time to his final resignation as a teacher in 1891, he was professor of the same chair in the University of Zurich; exchanging then the official positions of a university professor which he had held for twenty-five years, for private life and practice, he hoped to pursue his scientific labors with greater leisure.
Shortly after, he established his private laboratory first at Karlsrhue, and more recently in Strassburg, Germany. In 1894 he accepted an invitation by Dr. Karl von Ruck, the director of the Winyah Sanitarium for diseases of the lungs and throat, at Asheville, N.C., to visit his institution where his method for the treatment of tuberculosis had been successfully employed for the past year. In his subsequent acceptance of association with Dr. von Ruck for the future, Professor Klebs was attracted by the advantages of an excellently conducted, closed institution for tubercular patients, where the scientific and practical are harmoniously and advantageously combined.
His permanent and paramount interest in the subject of tuberculosis is attested by many of his labors, and begins with his first contribution to medicine, his dissertation heretofore mentioned. Already in 1866 he showed the so-called "Pearl Disease" of cattle to be identical with human tuberculosis, and called attention to the communicability of the disease to the human subject through milk. His last work, "Die Behandung der Tuberculose," 1894, Leopold Voss, Hamburg and Leipsic, contains his more recent labors on the subject of tuberculosis. In his association with Dr. von Ruck, Professor Klebs will have the direction of the bacterio-therapeutic laboratory and act as consulting physician to the institution. The laboratory is now fully equipped and the study of tuberculosis will be its chief object.
Apart from the honorable positions of professorship held by him, he has had many flattering calls from different universities in Europe and also from this country, and his recognition by scientific associations is attested by his election as honorary member by quite a number, as for instance the Reale Accademia del Lincei in Rome, and the Académie Royal de Médecine de Bruxelles, while he is an active member of most of the scientific national associations in Europe.
Professor Klebs married, in Bern, 1867, Miss Rosa Grosvenharher of Affaltern. His son, Arnold Klebs, M.D., has chosen the profession of his father, and will probably follow him to this country; and two others are engaged in other pursuits, while three children died, one son from diphtheria, which misfortune caused increased efforts on the father's part, in the study and treatment of the disease, the causative germs of which he discovered and described in 1883.
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