Felix Löhnis

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Felix Löhnis (born August 3, 1874 in Dresden , † December 8, 1930 in Leipzig ) was a German agricultural bacteriologist .

Felix Löhnis received his doctorate in Dresden in 1901 with the thesis "A contribution to the question of red clover fertilization". In 1905 he was with the writing "investigations over the course of the implementation of nitrogen in the arable soil" habilitation .

Löhnis was appointed to Leipzig, where he lectured at the University's Agricultural Institute until 1913. He then went to the USA because in Germany agricultural bacteriology was neglected within the scientific community and hardly any funds were made available for research. In 1914 he became the head of the bacteriological division of the US Department of Agriculture in Washington. In 1925 Löhnis returned to Leipzig and became professor and director of the "Institute for Agricultural Bacteriology and Soil Science" that had now been created. Always striving for teaching and progress within agricultural bacteriology, he was co-editor of the "Centralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infectious Diseases and Hygiene" founded in 1895.

In his 1921 publication Studies Upon the Life Cycles of the Bacteria , Löhnis gave an overview of the bacteriological literature published in America and Europe from 1838 to 1918, the results of which spoke in favor of the correctness of the conception of a diverse life and development cycle of bacteria ( pleomorphism of Microbes). The reason for his literature research were the results of his own comparative morphological studies and the life history of some important soil bacteria, especially those of the Azotobacter group. Löhnis and NR Smith had already given two preliminary reports on the life cycle of bacteria in 1916. In their investigations, they were able to show that the entire life cycle of bacteria was undoubtedly much more complicated than was generally assumed. Löhnis wrote that the discussion about a multifaceted growth of bacteria, the theory of the pleomorphism of microbes, had been going on for half a century. It dated back to the year 1872, when the Breslau botanist Ferdinand Cohn developed the first bacterial classification on a monomorphistic basis.

Löhnis mentions the work of pleomorphic forerunners such as Felix Dujardin (1841), J. Pineau (1845), FA Pouchet (1863), A. Trécul (1865–1867) and Antoine Béchamp (1883).

In 1925 Löhnis was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

literature

  • Felix Löhnis: Life Cycles of the Bacteria. Preliminary Communication. In: Journal of Agricultural Research. Vol. 7, 1916, pp. 675-702.
  • F Löhnis: Studies upon the Life Cycles of the Bacteria. Part 1. Review of the Literature 1838-1918. In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 16, Second Memoir 1921.
  • F Löhnis: Studies upon the Life Cycles of the Bacteria. Part 2: Life History of Azotobacter. In: Journal of Agricultural Research. 1923, pp. 401-452.
  • Felix Löhnis: Lectures on agricultural bacteriology. Publishing house of the Borntraeger brothers, Berlin 1926.

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personal data
SURNAME Löhnis, Felix
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German agricultural bacteriologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1930
Place of death Leipzig