Professor Wilhelm Caspari and a female assistant conduct medical research using microscopes in the laboratory of the main hospital in the Lodz ghetto.

Professor Wilhelm Caspari and a female assistant conduct medical research using microscopes in the laboratory of the main hospital in the Lodz ghetto.

Wilhelm Caspari (1872-1944), was born in Berlin. He originally studied clinical medicine and became a general practitioner. In the course of his practice, he turned to bacteriological studies, published a series of scholarly papers, and habilitated as a docent at the University of Berlin. Cancer research became his area of specialization. On the basis of his scientific findings, Caspari was offered a chair at the Speyer clinic in Frankfurt am Main, where he worked until the summer of 1933. He came to the Lodz ghetto in October 1941 with the Frankfurt transport. Rumkowski immediately accorded him special status, enabling Caspari to continue his research at the main hospital on Lagiewnicka Street. He was assigned a residence at the rest home in Marysin. From February, 1942 until December, 1943, Caspari gave talks about nutritional conditions in the ghetto. After the main hospital was shut down, Caspari was moved to the Department of Vital Statistics, where he compiled tables relating to the mortality rate, and to the caloric and vitamin content of the ghetto diet. Caspari's wife was deported in September, 1942. He remained in the ghetto, but his health soon deteriorated. He contracted influenza during the epidemic of 1943 and succumbed to pneumonia on January 21, 1944. [L. Dobroszycki, The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto 1941-1944, pp.435-6]