Hans Zinsser

Hans Zinsser (November 17, 1878 – September 4, 1940) was an American physician, bacteriologist, and author of over 200 medical articles and books. He spent many years researching typhus and developing a vaccine. As an author, his best-known book was the 1935 chronicle of epidemic typhus titled Rats, Lice and History. His 1940 memoir, As I Remember Him, was one of the first National Book Award recipients.

Biography

Early life The son of German immigrants, Zinsser was born in New York City in 1878. He attended Timothy Dwight School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He obtained an A.B. from Columbia University in 1899, and continued on at Columbia to earn M.A. and M.D. degrees in 1903.

In June 1905, he married Ruby Handforth Kunz (eldest daughter of mineralogist George Frederick Kunz),

Career

After interning at New York City's Roosevelt Hospital from 1903 to 1905, Zinsser was a practicing physician for a few years. However, he was more interested in the research and teaching side of medicine, and in 1908 accepted a position as Instructor in Bacteriology at Columbia. In 1910 he was hired by Stanford University to start a new bacteriology department. In 1923 he moved to Harvard Medical School where he was a professor and researcher until his death.

During World War I, Zinsser went to Serbia in 1915 as a member of the American Red Cross Sanitary Commission. He also received a military citation for taking exceptional risks to minister to wounded soldiers while under enemy fire. He was awarded the Order of St. Sava of Serbia and the Legion of Honour in France. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1923, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1924, and the American Philosophical Society in 1937.

In his scientific research, Zinsser spent many years studying typhus, including the condition that came to be known as Brill–Zinsser disease. He isolated the typhus bacterium and developed vaccines for different strains of the disease. He was also a published poet whose verses appeared in The Atlantic Monthly.

Zinsser mentored other scientists such as Albert Coons, who helped devise the technique of immunohistochemistry, and John Franklin Enders, who was a co-recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Last years

Diagnosed with lymphatic leukemia in 1938, Zinsser continued working at Harvard Medical School for another two years. During that time, he completed his unique autobiography, As I Remember Him: The Biography of R.S. (it was later learned the initials "R.S." stood for "Romantic Self"); he wrote the book "in the form of the biography of a third person—a friend whom he knew very well." He is interred in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Selected bibliography

Co-written with Philip Hanson Hiss. Co-written with Joseph Gardner Hopkins and Reuben Ottenberg.