Simeon Burt Wolbach

Simeon Burt Wolbach (July 3, 1880 – March 19, 1954) was an American pathologist, researcher, teacher, and journal editor who elucidated the infection vectors for Rocky Mountain spotted fever and epidemic typhus. He was president of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists and the American Society for Experimental Pathology. The bacterial genus Wolbachia is named after him.

Early life Wolbach was born in 1880 in Grand Island, Nebraska. He was the son of banker Samuel N. Wolbach and Rosa Stein. He was raised Jewish.

Wolbach attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard for his undergraduate degree. He received an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1903.

Wolbach's early research was into the effects of radiation on skin. Later fieldwork in Africa got him interested in tropical parasitology.

Personal life Wolbach married Anna F. Wellington in 1914 and had three children. He died in Sudbury, Massachusetts on March 19, 1954.

Selected publications