Administrative / Biographical History

Prausnitz was born in Hamburg and studied medicine at the Universities of Leipzig, Kiel and Breslau, graduating MD from the latter in 1902. He worked at the Hygiene Institute in Hamburg from 1902-5. He then moved to Britain and worked at the Royal Institute of Public Health as a Demonstrator in Bacteriology. He was involved particularly with diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis and water-borne infection and teaching for the Diploma in Public Health. He took the conjoint diploma in 1908. He later returned to Germany and taught at the university of Breslau, where he eventually became professor of hygiene. With the accession to power of the Nazis, Prausnitz decided to leave Germany for Britain. He moved to Manchester and with a MRC and Rockefeller grants he worked at the University on cotton spinners' asthma. In 1935 he moved to the Isle of Wight to practise as a GP and he changed his name to Carl Prausnitz Giles in 1939. Prausnitz was particularly well-known for research into allergens.

Related Material

See also MMC/2/Prausnitz.