[Georg von Hofmann-Wellenhof-130 years ago the first victim at the beginning of the investigation of infectious diseases in Austria].

After his medical studies in Vienna and Graz, Georg von Hofmann-Wellenhof, born in 1860 in Vienna, became an assistant at the Pathology Institute at the University of Graz. In 1887, he described a bacterium in the pharynx which resembled diphtheria bacillus. As it was not pathogenic in animal experiments, he named it Bacillus pseudodiphthericus, now Corynebacterium pseudodiphthericum. After moving to the Institute of Hygiene at the University of Vienna, he isolated a strain of glanders bacterium from a deceased patient in 1889. Because at the time there was nearly no knowledge of the virulence of glanders bacilli in man, von Hofmann-Wellenhof carried out animal experiments. During this time, he happened to contract a lethal glanders infection, probably via the respiratory tract. Autopsy revealed glanders abscesses in the respiratory tract, mediastinum, skin and muscles.