Jewish Invention Myths: The Discovery and Isolation of the Bacteria that Causes Tetanus (Clostridium tetani)

 

Source: https://www.renegadetribune.com/jewish-invention-myths-the-discovery-and-isolation-of-the-bacteria-that-causes-tetanus-clostridium-tetani/

 

by Karl Radl

 

One of the ‘jewish inventions’ that I found cited in Arnold Zweig’s book ‘Insulted and Exiled’ is one that I haven’t seen anywhere else but still needs to be addressed.

 

Zweig writes as follows lauding ‘jewish achievement’:

 

‘Rosenbach was the first to recognise the tetanus bacillus.’ (1)

 

Now once again it took me a little while to work out who Zweig is referring to here, but he is referring to the nineteenth century German doctor named Ottomar Rosenbach from Krappitz in Silesia who was indeed jewish. (2)

 

However, Rosenbach didn’t discover or isolate the tetanus bacteria at all, but rather he worked on the aspects of the blood-borne disease tetanus (3) after the disease’s toxin had been isolated by the German doctor Arthur Nicolaier – who was actually jewish – in 1884 although he shares that credit independently with two Italian physiologists Antonio Carle and Giorgio Rattone who did achieved similar findings and also identified the transmission matrix for tetanus. (4) Although the disease had been known about since at least the fifth century B.C. so neither Nicolaier, Carle nor Rattone can be really credited with its discovery. (5)

 

The person who actually isolated the bacteria that causes tetanus (Clostridium tetani) was Baron Kitasato Shibasaburo of Japan while studying at the University of Berlin in 1889 (6) and in 1890 with the German physiologist Emil von Behring came up with the first treatment for tetanus based on his work.

 

Thus, we can see that Zweig is quite wrong in that jews certainly did not discover tetanus nor the bacteria that causes tetanus.

 

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References

 

(1) Arnold Zweig, 1937, ‘Insulted and Exiled: The Truth about the German Jews’, 1^st Edition, John Miles: London, p. 152

 

(2) https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12837-rosenbach-ottomar-ernst-felix

 

(3) https://www.indianpediatrics.net/oct2015/oct-881-882.htm; N. Y. Academy of Medicine – Acute Traumatic Tetanus – Cerebral Syphilis – New Hospitals – Extra-uterine Foetus Delivered through the Rectum, 1889, ‘Letter from New York’, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 12, No. 2, p. 65

 

(4) https://web.archive.org/web/20150213010501/http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/tetanus.html

 

(5) Ibid.

 

(6) https://web.archive.org/web/20150213010501/http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/tetanus.html

 

(7) W. F. Bynum, 2007, ‘Derek S. Linton’s ‘Emil von Behring: Infectious Disease, Immunology, Serum Therapy’’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 112, No. 2, pp. 605–606

 

via Karl Radl’s Substack