Laszlo Detre, German

* Nagysurány, October 29, 1874 – † Washington, May 7, 1939 / microbiologist, ; creator of the antigen theory ; ; Originally called Deutsch and he wrote several of his papers under this name, later taking the surname Detre. He was ordained a doctor of medicine at the University of Budapest in 1895. Initially, he was an assistant to Ottó Pertik (1852–1913), professor of pathology at the university, then went on a study trip abroad with a state scholarship to Vienna and Paris to the Pasteur Institute, where he worked for a while in Mechnikov's laboratory. Returning to Budapest in 1901, he became the head of the newly opened Jenner–Pasteur Laboratory, which he directed until 1918. In 1903, he obtained the title of private teacher in the subject of bacteriology at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Budapest. From 1906 he also headed the tuberculosis department of the Charité Polyclinic. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the foreign-owned Jenner–Pasteur Laboratory was closed, so László Detre founded the independent vaccine production institute called Hungária Szérumművek with his colleagues: Gusztáv Bory, Miklós Rohonyi and Virgil Vigadi. In 1921 he launched the journal Állategésségügy. When the Szérumművek was liquidated by decree in 1933 and arbitrarily merged into the Phylaxia Szérumtermelő Rt., he emigrated to the USA with the help of his American-born wife's relatives, where he first became a professor at the medical faculty of Georgetown University and then head of the department at the National Institute of Health in Washington. His scientific achievements are of international importance. While studying immunity against typhus at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, in 1899 he formulated the theory of the formation of specific antibodies – the so-called antigens (the term antigen also comes from him). In 1901 he was the first to apply the immunological (serological) method in forensic medicine to distinguish the human or animal origin of blood traces. It was also at this time that he formulated the “leukotoxin theory” and described the phenomenon now called “immunosuppression”115. In 1926 he discovered and described the “zone phenomenon” of great importance in serodiagnosis. He developed a sensitive procedure in relation to the origin of human tuberculosis infection (whether it was of human or bovine origin). He investigated the anthrax mite-killing effect of radioactive radiation and played a pioneering role in organizing the mass production of veterinary vaccines in Hungary. He was among the first to produce anthrax serum from large animals (horses, donkeys). He was the first to apply this serum – for the measurement of which he developed a new, original and still used method – to human medicine. In 1913, he was the first to produce a serum from a horse against gas gangrene (gangrene). In addition to his professional work, he also excelled in the field of scientific dissemination. He translated Paul de Kruif's highly successful book Bacillus Hunters into Hungarian (in 1931). He wrote the chapter on Bacteriology in the first volume of his Medical Handbook, published in 1900. ; ; His main works: ; Impfstoffe und Sera (together with C. Feistmantel), 1903, ; Immunitástan (In: A Budapest Jenner–Pasteur Intézet Értesítője), 1906.