Hygiena 2018, 63(4):140-143 | DOI: 10.21101/hygiena.a1621

The two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Max von Pettenkofer (1818-1901) of the founder of our discipline - the "high priest" of hygiene

Vladimír Bencko, Otakar Klein

Univerzita Karlova, 1. lékařská fakulta, Ústav hygieny a epidemiologie a Všeobecná fakultní nemocnice, Praha, Česká republika

The rapid development of the industrial society in the 19th century was accompanied, among other things, by rapid population growth in urban centers, excessive pollution of waterways and air. Nowadays the rapidly growing urban agglomerations have often been overwhelmed by epidemics of typhoid fever and cholera. Max von Pettenkofer, in 1865, lectures on Hygiene at the Ludwig-Maxmilian's University of Munich, and in 1879 he founded the Hygiene Institute at the Medical Faculty in Munich. Since the second half of the 19th century, Max von Pettenkofer has been pushing for Munich to build a central sewer drainage and a system for safe drinking water that sanitized the city helped avert the threat of major epidemics of cholera and typhoid fever. Establishing a sewerage system and a central distribution of safe drinking water without the use of lead pipes, just like the establishment of central city slaughterhouses, has become a good example and a way of combating large-scale epidemics of intestinal infections in urban agglomerations. The epidemiological approach by of Max von Pettenkofer to promote the construction of sewerage systems and the establishment of a central distribution of safe drinking water to the population was recognized worldwide. Max von Pettenkofer together with Robert Koch had a significant influence on the development of hygiene in Europe of the second half of the 19th century, having a number of pupils - important scientific prominent personalities such as Isidor Soyka and Gustav Kabrhel, founders of the Prague School of Hygiene.

Keywords: history of hygiene, hygienists, Max von Pettenkofer, Robert Koch, Isidor Soyka, Gustav Kabrhel

Received: July 2018; Accepted: July 31, 2018; Published: November 30, 2018  Show citation