One of the forgotten ‘jewish invention’ controversies – which I discovered quite by accident while I was looking into the work of the jewish doctor Albert Neisser which is cited by Arnold Zweig in his 1937 book ‘Insulted and Exiled’ as a prime example of ‘jewish achievement’ – (1) is Neisser’s part in the ‘Hansen-Neisser Controversy’ of 1880 concerning just who discovered Mycobacterium leprae; one of the two bacterial causes of leprosy (aka Hansen’s Disease) in 1879/1880.
Gerhard Hansen – Albert Neisser’s interlocutor during the ‘Hansen-Neisser Controversy’ – was an eminent nineteenth century Norwegian doctor and bacteriologist who was gazumped by Neisser using Hansen’s own generosity and collegiality to his advantage.
As Douglas Lanska explained in the ‘World Neurology Newsletter’ in 2015:
‘In the late 1860s, on the basis of his clinical and anatomical studies, Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen (1841-1912) concluded preliminarily that leprosy was a distinct disease with a specific cause, and not simply a degenerative condition with multiple potential etiologies. (See Figures 1 and 2.) His subsequent epidemiological studies in Norway found no association between the occurrence of leprosy in various districts and general mortality rates, provided evidence that leprosy was contagious rather than hereditary, and demonstrated that isolation of cases produced a decline in incidence.
In 1873, Hansen discovered rod-shaped bodies — Mycobacterium Leprae, sometimes called Hansen’s bacillus — in leprous nodules, although he did not clearly identify them as bacteria. He described these in a report to the Medical Society of Christiania (now Oslo) and in his main treatise in 1874, with a shorter English version in 1875:
“While leprosy may be … indirectly proved to be a specific disease by demonstrating its contagiousness, it would, of course, be the best if a direct proof could be given. I will briefly mention what seems to indicate, that such proof is, perhaps, attainable. There are to be found in every leprous tubercle extirpated from a living individual — and I have examined a great number of them — small staff-like bodies, much resembling bacteria, lying within the cells; not in all, but in many of them. Though unable to discover any difference between these bodies and true bacteria, I will not venture to declare them to be actually identical. Further, while it seems evident that these low forms of organic life [i.e., bacteria] engender some of the most acute infectious diseases, the attributing of the origin of such a chronic disease as leprosy to the apparently same matter must, of course, be attended with still greater doubts. It is worthy of notice, however, that the large brown elements found in all leprous proliferations in advanced stages … bear a striking likeness to bacteria in certain stages of development.”
Hansen tried unsuccessfully to stain his preparations. In 1879, when Hansen was visited by Albert Neisser (1855-1916), a young colleague from the laboratory of German physician and pioneering microbiologist Robert Koch (1843-1910) in Breslau, Hansen, encouraged him to try to stain the bacteria. (See Figure 3.) Shortly after Neisser returned to Breslau, he succeeded in staining the bacteria, and then promptly announced his findings, suggested that these bacteria were indeed the infectious agent of leprosy, and claimed priority for the discovery.
Hansen replied quickly and tried to assert his own priority, and by 1880 he had also succeeded in staining the bacteria.
“It was not my intention to make any of my investigations on this subject public at present, but as not only Dr. Edlund to whom in the preceding year I showed preparations, and mentioned that I considered leprosy a parasitic disease, in his little work on ‘Leprosy’ speaks of its precise origin as something that he has discovered in the form of “micrococci,” by also Dr. Neisser, of Breslau, who passed some portion of this summer in Bergen has just published the result of his investigations of those preparations that he made while here, and as these results also point out that in general, the preparations are filled with ‘bacilli’ which he supposes to be peculiar to leprosy, and as its ‘contagium’— I feel myself called upon to announce what I have attained to, up to the present time, in my researches after the same ‘contagium,’ and, this, partly to assert my priority with reference to this discovery, and partly in order to advance those details in research which I omitted to announce on account of the still uncertain result in my report to the Medical Society of Christiania [Oslo], 1874, concerning my investigations into the etiology of leprosy.”’ (2)
Put bluntly Hansen had been working on Mycobacterium leprae and had commented extensively on and believed them to be a probable cause of leprosy and Neisser turned up in 1879 – after Koch had written to Hansen suggesting a new staining technique to isolate the bacteria – and then took a sample from Hansen only to then successfully carry out the new staining method mentioned by Koch on Hansen’s sample. Neisser then proceeded to claim he had actually discovered Mycobacterium leprae not Hansen, which Hansen immediately contested although he was in the middle of a fraught criminal trial at that point for deliberately infecting an unknowing patient with Mycobacterium leprae to see if they contracted leprosy.
As Ghoush and Chaudhuri wrote in the ‘Indian Journal of Dermatology’ in 2015; Neisser is very much the villain of the piece in trying to steal credit and the priority from Hansen for the discovery:
‘In 1879, a young German bacteriologist caller Albert Neisser (who later gained fame for discovering the causative organism of gonorrheoa), a pupil of Robert Koch, on his research trip to Norway to study leprosy, had the opportunity to meet Dr. Hansen and have a look at his research work. From Hansen he received preparations made from lepra nodes. On his return to Germany, Neisser made all attempts to stain them better to yield more convincing results and equipped with his advanced staining methods and by virtue of being a bacteriologist himself, he succeeded. A very excited Dr. Neisser went ahead to publish his scientific find in 1880, without giving the due credit to Dr. Hansen, and claimed the honour of discovering the organism that caused the disease. Soon the term Neisser's bacterium was in use while Hansen was busy in Bergen fighting his court case for violating medical ethics for human experimentation. The court found him guilty for failing to obtain consent from the subject and he was removed from his post as resident physician of the Bergen leprosy hospital in 1880. But once the news of Albert's claim reached Bergen, the entire medical fraternity of Norway defended Hansen's stand and it was none other than Dr. Danielssen who encouraged Hansen to respond strongly to Neisser's deliberate attempt at plagiarism. Fortunately the truth was unveiled and the conflict was officially addressed in a lepra congress held in Berlin where Hansen was recognized as the true discoverer of the lepra bacilli. This also marks the world's awakening and acceptance of the contagion theory and changed the way leprosy as a disease was approached. It was the fruit of his untiring work that the amended act of 1885 was passed, which ordered health authorities to allow lepers to live in precautionary isolation, away from the unaffected section of the community, which led to quick and steady decline in the leprosy disease burden in Norway.’ (3)
Bieliaieva et al writing in ‘Georgian Medical News’ in 2020 agree with Ghoush and Chaudhuri’s analysis but also highlight Neisser’s dishonestly in falsely claiming he didn’t get his Mycobacterium leprae sample from Hansen in order to deliberately deprive him of the credit and the priority for the discovery of Mycobacterium leprae.
They explain that:
‘The scandal was triggered by A. Neisser, who published his description of leprosy pathogen and said that although G. Hansen saw the microorganism, he could neither stain it nor prove that it is a bacterium. In addition, A. Neisser referred to D. Danielssen, as if G. Hansen had not shown him his bacillus. These statements were aroused an attack of rage in D. Danielssen, who had collaborated and supported G. Hansen throughout his life. In addition, G. Hansen received unprecedented support from all Norwegian doctors who defended the great Norwegian discovery: the Norwegian medical community, outraged by these events, insisted that G. Hansen submitted explanatory statements to the European scientific journals in English, German and French. During the trial of G. Hansen, held on May 31, 1880, each of the interrogated medical experts confirmed that G. Hansen acted in the interests of the motherland, medicine and science. Despite the fact that G. Hansen was deprived of the opportunity to treat patients, his authority in the scientific world remained unshakable: G. Hansen held many honorary positions, in particular, since 1874 he occupied the position of director of Bergen Museum of Natural History, was a member of medical unions, and co-founder of the Leprosy profile journal.’ (4)
This is pretty unequivocal in showing Neisser’s dishonesty – although practically everyone (then as now) recognizes/recognized Hansen’s priority not Neisser’s - although it is worth stating that while Hansen was blackballed out of the medical profession in Norway for his unethical actions in attempting to infect an unknowing patient with leprosy via Mycobacterium leprae; Neisser did similar experiments in his life on unknowing German patients and suffered no ill effects to his career whatsoever . (5)
It is perhaps unsurprising that Neisser was a classmate of the jew Paul Ehrlich (6) who similarly stole and plagiarised the work of others as his own (7) and is falsely claimed to have discovered/created Chemotherapy. (8) Given that Ehrlich - like Neisser - was a jew who stole the work of others and presented it as his own and significantly profited from doing as well as running down his rivals much as Ehrlich did.
So no jews did not discover Mycobacterium leprae although they did try to steal the credit for doing so!
References
(1) Arnold Zweig, 1937, ‘Insulted and Exiled: The Truth about the German Jews’, 1st Edition, John Miles: London, p. 152
(2) https://worldneurologyonline.com/article/the-hansen-neisser-controversy-concerning-the-discovery-of-mycobacterium-leprae/
(3) Sangita Ghosh, Soumik Chaudhuri, 2015, ‘Chronicles of Gerhard-Henrik Armauer Hansen's Life and Work’, Indian Journal of Dermatology, Vol. 60, No. 3, p. 220
(4) O. Bieliaieva, O. Uvarkina, Yu. Lysanets, H. Morokhovets, Ye. Honcharova, M. Melaschenko, 2020, ‘Gerhard Hansen vs. Albert Neisser: Priority for the Invention of Mycobacterium leprae and Problems of Bioethics’, Georgian Medical News, Vol. 309, p. 1158
(5) Ibid., p. 1156
(6) Ibid., p. 1157
(7) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-arsphenamine
(8) See my articles: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-chemotherapy and https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-chemotherapy-68c