Emil Ponfick

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Emil Ponfick (November 3, 1844 - November 3, 1913) was a German pathologist who was born in Frankfurt am Main. In 1867 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Heidelberg, and later was an assistant to Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen (1833-1910) at Würzburg, and Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) in Berlin. Afterwards he became a professor of pathology at Rostock (1873), Göttingen (1876) and Breslau (1878), where he replaced Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (1839-1884) as director of the pathological institute, and where he remained until his death in 1913.

Ponfick is remembered for his pioneer research of actinomycosis, and his recognition of the causative role Actinomyces played in human actinomycosis. He documented his findings in an 1882 treatise titled Die Actinomykose des Menschen, eine neue Infectionskrankheit.

In 1874 Ponfick warned the Association of Baltic Physicians about the dangers of animal-to-human blood transfusions (xenotransfusion). This warning was based on empirical experience in which a patient had died after receiving blood from a sheep. The following year physiologist Leonard Landois (1837-1902) from the University of Greifswald backed up Ponfick's findings with statistical data regarding the dangers of xenotransfusion.