Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (22 August 1871 – 3 August 1935) was a Jewish bacteriologist, suffragette, and physician, known for her research on the pathogenesis of tuberculosis. Eventually, Rabinowitsch became the director of the Moabit Hospital.

After graduation she went to Berlin, where Professor Robert Koch permitted her to pursue her bacteriological studies at the Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases, becoming his only female apprentice, albeit unpaid. In April 1898, she returned to Berlin. She married bacteriologist Walter Kempner (1869-1920).

After the discovery a species, trypanosome lewisi, in 1877, she identified the different stages of the parasite. She worked with Pasteur Institute authorities to solve the BCG vaccine crisis after accidental contamination in Lubock led to patients being infected with tuberculosis.

Personal life She worked with Dr. Walter Kempner (1869-1920, a physician and social hygienist) at the Robert Koch Institute (formerly called Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases), whom she later married in 1898 in Madrid.

They had three children. Their first son Robert Kempner (1899-1993) was a jurist who served at the Nuremberg trials. Their daughter, Nadja Kempner, died from tuberculosis in 1932 before she could complete her studies in Philogy. Their younger son, Dr Walter Kempner Jr. (1903-1997), a medical doctor, was known for his rice diet. Headstone at the graves of Rabinowitsch-Kempner, her husband, daughter and son Robert, Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde, Berlin.

She later died on 3 August 1935, aged 64, from Breast Cancer and was buried in their family's grave in Berlin.