Emil Adolph von Behring (1854-1917)

Awarded the Prize “for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria, by which he has opened a new road in the domain of medical science and thereby placed in the hands of the physician a victorious weapon against illness and deaths.”

German biologist. Behring was born on March 15, 1854 at Hansdorf (now Jankowa Zaganska, Poland). He entered the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin in 1874 and took his medical degree in 1878. He passed his State Examination in 1880. After ten year’s military service, he became an assistant at the Institute of Hygiene and was appointed Professor of Hygiene at Halle in 1894. And the following year he moved to the corresponding chair at Marburg. Behring died on March 31, 1917 at Marburg.