Max Jessner (1887-1978) - A prominent Wroclaw's dermatologist

Abstract

Max Jessner (1887-1978) was born in Slupsk, studied in Königsberg and Munich. In the years 1912-1914 he was an assistant of Josef Jadassohna (1863-1936) at the University Department of Dermatology in Bern, and after a break due to the war, he moved with his master to Wroclaw in 1917. He was habilitated in 1922 based on the work on sporotrichosis. He organized a scientific expedition to Mongolia in 1928, where he studied the pathogenesis of syphilis. In 1931 he became a head of the Department of Dermatology, University of Wroclaw. He was removed from the university in 1935 on the basis of anti-Semitic legislation in the Third Reich, but he was allowed to emigrate to the Switzerland. He moved to the United States in 1941, where his greatest scientific achievement was the description of the Jessner-Kanof disease in 1953, which is the eponym. In 1971 he returned to the Switzerland, where he died in 1978 at the age 91. His life was a constant change of residence, sometimes escape from the mortal danger during the Holocaust. Max Jessner is a representative and continuator of excellent clinical and research-oriented school of Wroclaw's dermatology.