David Hendricks Bergey

Who was David Hendricks Bergey?

David Hendricks Bergey was an American bacteriologist, born December 27, 1860 in Skippack, Pennsylvania, died September 5, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He studied at University of Pennsylvania, where he obtained his Bachelor of Sciences and Doctor of Medicine degrees in 1884. He practiced medicine until 1893. He then joined the university's hygiene laboratory, where he taught hygiene and bacteriology. He led the laboratory from 1929 until his retirement in 1932.

He was chairman of the Editorial Board for the first edition of Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology, published in 1923. The Determinative Manual has subsequently been published in a further eight editions, and Bergey's Manual Trust is currently publishing the second edition of Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology. The Trust is currently based at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, USA.

He was the first doctor to isolate a bacterium called Actinomyces from a human being in 1907.