Otto Lentz

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Reinhold Ludwig Otto Lentz (born January 7, 1873 in Culm ; † July 14, 1952 in Berlin ) was a German hygienist and bacteriologist and director of the Robert Koch Institute from 1945 to 1949 .

Life

The early employees at the Robert Koch Institute (Lentz 1902–1906)

Lentz received his doctorate in Göttingen in 1895 on "Osteochondritis syphilitica and rickets congenita". He then worked as an assistant at the Hygiene Institute and the Psychiatric Clinic in Göttingen and at the Moabit Municipal Hospital in Berlin, unskilled worker in the Prussian Ministry of Culture , employee at the Institute for Infectious Diseases , head of the bacteriological research institutes in Idar ad Nahe and Saarbrücken in connection with the fight against typhus in the southwest of the empire.

From 1908 to 1912 he was head of the epidemic department at the Institute for Infectious Diseases. Employed in the bacteriological department of the Imperial Health Department since 1913 , Lentz became a secret medical advisor and lecturer in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior in 1915 and in the Ministry of Public Welfare in 1920 . In 1934 he was retired, after which he resigned from these offices between 1935 and 1945 and worked in a bacteriological institute. In 1910 he became a member of the Berlin Masonic lodge Zum Widder .

On May 14, 1945, with the approval of the Soviet military administration, a Berlin municipal self-government was founded, the head of which was Professor Sauerbruch . In 1945 Lentz became head of the Robert Koch Institute for Hygiene and Infectious Diseases. In the course of the reorganization of the department for health services, the former Reich institutes, namely the Reich Health Office, the Robert Koch Institute and the Reich Institute for Water and Air Hygiene, became branches of the Central Institute for Hygiene and Health Service by order of the City of Berlin's Magistrate of October 23, 1945 united. President Lentz was in charge of management and he remained in this position until he retired in March 1949.

In 1948 he became professor for hygiene at the newly founded Free University of Berlin . He continued to head the Hygiene Institute at the Free University of Berlin until his death in 1952.

Lentz began his work at the Hygiene Institute under extremely difficult conditions. Although he enjoyed the guest right at the Robert Koch Institute, he even had to defend his study there; Although he was able to benefit from American book donations, he had to fight for the simplest work equipment such as microscopes and his own telephone connection for the hygiene institute. Scientific research was carried out under Lentz on topics such as the differentiation of bacteria of the Coryne group with the help of bacterial culture media and the treatment of diphtheria permanent eliminators. In addition, disinfection experiments were carried out with the antiseptic soap Falkosept, autovaccines were produced for rheumatics and agglutinations with micrococci , staphylococci and streptococci as well as the fermentation of sugar in micrococci strains were worked on. In addition, there were growth inhibition attempts of micrococci with tuberculosis bacilli, sterilization attempts in autoclaves and scarlet treptococci breeding attempts.

Honors

Publications (selection)

  • Syphilitic osteochondritis and congenital rickets . Ed .: University of Göttingen; Dissertation. Dieterichsche Universitäts Buchdruckerei, Göttingen 1895.
  • Disease control and its technical aids: a guide for practical and civil servant doctors, administrative officials, hospital managers, disinfectors, health overseers, nurses . Simion, Berlin 1917.
  • Common instructions on communicable diseases (on behalf of the Minister for People's Welfare) . Ed .: Ministry for People's Welfare. Richard Schoetz's publishing bookstore, Berlin 1926.
  • Handbook of Smallpox Control and Vaccination . Richard Schoetz's publishing bookstore, Berlin 1927.
  • Pest control with highly toxic substances: instructions for teaching and testing in the use of hydrogen cyanide for pest control; With an appendix compilation of all z. Acts and ordinances currently in force in Germany on pest control with hydrogen cyanide . Richard Schoetz's publishing bookstore, Berlin 1934.
  • The inheritance of the predisposition to cancer (= Dt. Akad. Der Naturforscher Leopoldina [Hrsg.]: Nova acta Leopoldina . Volume 14, 101 ). 1944, ISSN  0369-5034 , p. 51-99 .
  • Cancer and heredity: a family tree research (=  work from the State Institute for Experimental Therapy and the Georg-Speyer-Haus in Frankfurt am Main . Volume 45 ). Fischer, 1947, ISSN  0365-6705 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Death register StA Wilmersdorf of Berlin, No. 1370/1952
  2. ↑ GVK - Common Union Catalog
  3. ↑ Berlin Microbiological Society e. V.
  4. ^ Federal Archives of the Reich Institute for Water and Air Quality
  5. ^ Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine
  6. ↑ Member entry of Otto Lentz at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on September 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Lentz, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lentz, Reinhold Ludwig Otto (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German hygienist and bacteriologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Culm
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1952
Place of death Berlin