Adolf Dieudonné

Who is Adolf Dieudonné?

Adolf Dieudonné was a German physician and hygienist, born in Stuttgart.

He studied medicine in Tübingen, Berlin, Munich and Würzburg, and from 1888 served as a physician in the Bavarian army. Several years later he was stationed at the Imperial Health Office in Berlin, where he was exposed to the latest developments of Emil von Behring. In 1897, under the direction of Robert Koch, he along with Georg Gaffky and Richard Pfeiffer, researched the bubonic plague in Bombay. After his return to Germany, he spent six years as a military physician in Würzburg, where in 1898 he gained his habilitation in hygiene at the university.

In 1904 he was appointed to the Kriegsakademie in Munich, where he instructed military officers, while at the same time teaching classes at the University of Munich. In 1906 he became an honorary professor, and three years later was appointed as Ministerialrat and Medizinalreferent in the Ministry of the Interior, subsequently becoming head of Bavarian Aid Services.

For most of his career he dealt with the issue of controlling outbreaks of disease, in the civilian as well as in the military sector. In his various roles he was involved with bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid, Spanish flu, diphtheria and scarlet fever, et al.