[One hundred years of cryptococcosis. Medical mycology in the 19th century in Greifswald].

Not later than 1842 medico-mycological investigations began at Greifswald in Germany following the appointment of Wilhelm Baum (1799-1883) to the chair of surgery at the university. This is indicated by some theses as well as by the discovery of the contagious characteristics of pityriasis versicolor by Carl Ferdinand Eichstedt (1816-1892) who found a fungus as the cause (1846), which was named Microsporon furfur later (C. Robin 1853). In 1868 the physician (Karl) Friedrich Mosler (1831-1911) published clinical-mycological studies and investigations on animal feeding with yeasts. Some time later (1870) Friedrich Grohé (1830-1886) and his assistants Alwin R. A. Block (1843-?) and M. R. Roth of the Pathological Institute described results of transmission-studies with "Aspergillus glaucus, Penicillium glaucum and yeast". The successor to the chair, Paul Grawitz (1850-1932), also published results of his own mycological investigations. Finally, on 7 July, 1894, during the evening lecture of the Greifswald Medical Society Abraham Buschke (1868-1943) from the Hospital of Surgery gave a talk "on a peculiar disease caused by coccidia" followed by the talk of pathologist Otto Busse (1867-1922) on a "demonstration of a pathogenic coccidia species". Busse's subsequent publications are the first proper descriptions of cryptococcosis (1894 f). Nevertheless, Cryptococcus neoformans has been named in connection with F. Sanfelice, whose results were published later (1895).