German physician and bacteriologist who discovered the tetanus bacterium in 1884.

German physician and bacteriologist who discovered the tetanus bacterium in 1884.

Though he was unable to obtain it as a pure culture, it was isolated within a few years by Shibasaburo Kitsato.

He discovered it lived in soil, with which he innoculated mice. Because of its presence in earth, it is responsible for infection from dirty wounds, which was particularly significant in the cases of wounded soldiers during WW I. The toxin secreted by this bacterium, Clostridium tetani, causing fatal muscle spasms. It was later found to travel along nerves to the spinal chord, causing increasingly severe spasms of the head and neck and jaw, from which came the common name of lockjaw. Fortunately for the injured soldiers, every soldier received an anti-toxin, used from 1915.

Nicolaier died, aged 80, in 1942, pending wartime internment as a Jew, likely by suicide.

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