Eduard Emmanuel Klein

Biography of Eduard Emmanuel Klein

Edward Emanuel Klein was born to a Jewish family in Osijek, Croatia, then Ersek in Hungary. He studied in Vienna and subsequently concentrated on microscopical anatomy. In 1869 he travelled to London on an assignment for Salomon Stricker (1834-1898), whose "Handbuch der Lehre von den Geweben des Menschen und der Tiere" (Leipzig 1869-1872, London 1870-1873) was to be translated into English.

In 1871 he was invited to England and first worked in histology with John Scott Burdon-Sanderson (1828-1905). Later, however, he specialised in bacteriology and became an early and successful representative of this discipline in England. He became a teacher of histology, later also for bacteriology, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School. In 1890 he established a private school in bacteriology - counting Ronal Ross (1857-1932) among his students. Klein proved the streptococcal aetiology of scarlatina.