Maximilian Theodor Bilharz was born on 23 March 1825 in Sigmaringen. After attending grammar school in 1843, he initially devoted himself to philosophical and scientific studies in Freiburg i. Br. before beginning his medical studies in Tübingen in 1845. There he won the 1846 prize for the blood of invertebrates. In 1849, he passed the medical state examination and for a short time was employed as a temporary prosector at the anatomy department in Freiburg. In May 1850, Bilharz, who wanted to pursue a scientific career, accepted an offer from his friend Wilhelm Griesinger, who had met him in Tübingen, to accompany him as a private assistant to Cairo, where Griesinger was to reorganise the Egyptian health system as director of the Medical College. Bilharz, who was taken over into the Egyptian civil service and supervised a clinical department, was now able to pursue his scientific projects. During his research on worm diseases, he discovered new intestinal worms, including the pathogen known as schistosomiasis, an infectious disease known as schistosomiasis, and studies on the electric organ of the tremor catfish. After Griesinger's return to Germany, Bilharz became senior physician at the surgical clinic in Cairo in 1852 and chief physician of the internal department in 1853. In 1855 he was appointed professor, and one year later he was appointed professor of descriptive anatomy. In 1862 he accompanied a travel company of Duke Ernst II of Coburg-Gotha to the Red Sea. Alfons Bilharz was born on 2 May 1836 and died there on 9 May 1862. After his first natural history studies at the University of Freiburg, he studied medicine in Heidelberg, Würzburg, Berlin and Vienna, graduating with a medical examination in 1859. After a visit to his brother Theodor in Egypt, he devoted himself to nerve physics in the Physiological Laboratory of Emil du Bois-Reymond. A short stay in America followed, before he became the leading hospital physician in Sigmaringen. There he was responsible for the expansion of the clinic, especially the lunatic department. An eye condition forced him to hand over the reins in 1907. During his practical work, numerous philosophical studies, especially about Kant's and Schopenhauer's philosophy, were developed. Alfons Bilharz died on 23 May 1925, and the collection collected by Prof. Hans Schadewaldt was transferred to the university archives via the Institute for the History of Medicine: Poems from his school days, notes and drawings on the research projects Parasites and Pisces, the family chronicle and correspondence, school notebooks, publications, drawings (especially of bilharzia) and correspondence have been preserved by Alfons Bilharz. The holdings are enriched with secondary literature (including essays by Hans Schadewaldt on Theodor Bilharz), photographs and a card index with remnants of the letters of the presumably entire estate (According to Angelika Althoff: Wissenschaftlicher Briefwechsel von und mit Theodor Bilharz. Düsseldorf 1980, p. 2f, the letters were recorded by the daughters of Alfons Bilharz; here also further information on the locations of the Bilharz estate).
