Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Lydia 1871-1935

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (1871-1935) was a bacteriologist who studied tuberculosis. She was born in Kovno, Lithuania and studied in Zurich and Bern. In 1912, she became the first woman in Berlin and the second woman in Prussia to reach the rank of Professor. Rabinowitsch-Kempner worked with Robert Koch at the Institute for Infectious Diseases ( Institut für Infektionskrankheiten ). In 1895, Rabinowitsch-Kempner went to the United States to teach at the Women's Medical College in Philadelphia and established a bacteriology laboratory there. Returning to Germany, she edited the Zeitschrift für Tuberkulose from 1914 to 1934 and became associate professor of pathology and director of the bacteriological department at Berlin University, Moabit Hospital in 1920. After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Rabinowitsch-Kempner was forcibly retired in 1934.

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner married Walter Kempner, another assistant to Robert Koch, in 1898 and had two sons, Walter Kempner and Robert Kempner, and a daughter. Walter Kempner came to Duke Medical Center in 1933 and Robert Kempner was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner died in Berlin in 1935.

From the guide to the Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner Autograph Book and Papers, 1879-1885, 1910-1933 and undated, (David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)