Karl Landsteiner - Start of An Academic Career

Start of An Academic Career

Landsteiner’s father, Leopold (1818–1875), a renowned Viennese journalist, died at age 56, at that time Karl was only 6. This led to a close relationship between Landsteiner and his mother Fanny (née Hess; 1837–1908). Karl and his mother converted to Catholicism from Judaism when he was twenty one. He kept her death mask all his life in his bedroom. After graduating with the Matura exam from a Vienna secondary school he took up the study of medicine at the University of Vienna and wrote his doctoral thesis in 1891. While still a student he published an essay on the influence of diets on the composition of blood.

From 1891 to 1893 Landsteiner studied chemistry in Würzburg under Hermann Emil Fischer, in München under Eugen Bamberger and in Zürich under Arthur Rudolf Hantzsch. A number of publications from that period, some of them in co-operation with his professors, show that he did not restrict himself to hearing lectures.

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