Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (22 August 1871 – 3 August 1935) was a Jewish bacteriologist and physician, known for her research on tuberculosis and public health.[1][2] She was the second woman to become a Professor in Prussia.

Biography

Lydia Rabinowitsch was born at Kovno, Russian Empire (now Kaunas, Lithuania). She was educated at the girls' gymnasium of her native city, and privately in Latin and Greek, subsequently studying natural sciences at the universities of Zurich and Bern (MD). After graduation she went to Berlin, where Professor Robert Koch permitted her to pursue her bacteriological studies at the Institute for Infectious Diseases. She became the second woman in Prussia employed as a professor, and the first in Berlin.

In 1895, she went to Philadelphia, where she was appointed lecturer and, subsequently, professor at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. There she founded a bacteriological institute, though still continuing her studies every summer under Professor Koch in Berlin.

In 1896, she delivered before the International Congress of Women at Berlin a lecture on the study of medicine by women in various countries. At the congress of scientists held at Breslau in 1904 she presided over the section for hygiene and bacteriology.

In 1898, she married microbiologist Dr Walter Kempner (1869-1920) of Berlin, and returned to that city.[3] Their son, Dr Walter Kempner Jr. (1903-1997), was also a medical doctor. He was known for his rice diet. Their other son was the jurist Robert Kempner (1899-1993). A daughter, Nadja Kempner, died from tuberculosis in 1932.

Headstone at the graves of Rabinowitsch-Kempner, her husband, daughter and son Robert, Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde, Berlin.

She died in 1935 in Berlin, aged 63, from undisclosed causes.

References

  1. ↑ Mary R. S. Creese; Thomas M. Creese (2004). Ladies in the Laboratory 2. Scarecrow Press. pp. 129–138. ISBN 978-0-8108-4979-2.
  2. ↑ Kaufmann, Stefan H. E. (2022). "Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, a TB researcher and role model". Nature Reviews Immunology. 22 (8): 464. doi:10.1038/s41577-022-00754-9. ISSN 1474-1741. PMID 35773352. S2CID 250175928.
  3. ↑ Klemmer, Philip; Grim, Clarence E.; Luft, Friedrich C. (2014). "Who and What Drove Walter Kempner?: The Rice Diet Revisited". Hypertension. 64 (4): 684–688. doi:10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.114.03946. ISSN 0194-911X. PMID 25001270.

Sources

Bibliography

  • Anna Plothow. Der Weltspiegel, October 27, 1904
  • Deutsche Hausfrauenzeitung, July 1897, by Isidore Singer & Regina Neisser
  • Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Fruchtkörper einiger Gastromyceten, L Rabinowitsch, 1894[1]
  1. ↑ Maroske, Sara; May, Tom W. (2018). "Naming names: The first women taxonomists in mycology". Studies in Mycology. 89: 63–84. doi:10.1016/j.simyco.2017.12.001. PMC 6002341. PMID 29910514.
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