Friedrich Fülleborn was a physician who specialized in tropical medicine

Tropical medicine

Tropical medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with health problems that occur uniquely, are more widespread, or prove more difficult to control in tropical and subtropical regions....

 and parasitology

Parasitology

Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them. As a biological discipline, the scope of parasitology is not determined by the organism or environment in question, but by their way of life...

. He was a native of Kulm, West Prussia

West Prussia

West Prussia was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773–1824 and 1878–1919/20 which was created out of the earlier Polish province of Royal Prussia...

, which today is known as Chełmno, Poland. He studied medicine and natural sciences in Berlin, where one of his instructors was Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer (1835–1921). From 1894 to 1901 he was a military physician assigned to the Schutztruppe

Schutztruppe

Schutztruppe was the African colonial armed force of Imperial Germany from the late 19th century to 1918, when Germany lost its colonies. Similar to other colonial forces, the Schutztruppe consisted of volunteer European commissioned and non-commissioned officers, medical and veterinary officers. ...

 in German East Africa

German East Africa

German East Africa was a German colony in East Africa, which included what are now :Burundi, :Rwanda and Tanganyika . Its area was , nearly three times the size of Germany today....

, where he also performed scientific studies of the region.

In 1901 Fülleborn became director of the Department of Tropical Hygiene

Hygiene

Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...

 and Tropical Medicine at the Hamburg Institute for Marine and Tropical Diseases

Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine; is a medical institution based in Hamburg, Germany which is dedicated to research, treatment, training and therapy of tropical and infectious diseases....

. In 1908 he was appointed by Georg Thilenius

Georg Thilenius

Georg Christian Thilenius was a German physician and anthropologist who was a native of Soden am Taunus. He studied medicine in Bonn and Berlin, and in 1896 was habilitated as an anatomist at the University of Strasbourg...

 (1868–1937) of the Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 Museum of Ethnology

Ethnology

Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...

 to head the "Hamburg South Seas Expedition" on a scientific mission to the South Pacific. In 1930 he succeeded Bernhard Nocht (1857–1945) as director of the Hamburg Institute for Marine and Tropical Diseases, a position he maintained until his death in 1933.

• Associated eponym:
• Fülleborn's method: A procedure for examining parasitic ova in faecal matter.