Walther Kruse was a German bacteriologist who was a native of Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. In 1888 he received his doctorate from Berlin, where he was a student of Rudolf Virchow

Rudolf Virchow

Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...

 (1821-1902). From 1889 until 1892 he worked as a bacteriologist in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

, and in 1892 travelled to Egypt to perform research on dysentery

Dysentery

Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...

. In 1893 he became an assistant to hygienist Carl Flügge

Carl Flügge

Carl Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Flügge was a German bacteriologist and hygienist who was a native of Hannover. He studied medicine in Göttingen, Bonn, Leipzig and Munich, and in 1878 was a lecturer of hygiene in Berlin...

 (1847-1923) in Breslau, and afterwards was a professor in Bonn

Bonn

Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....

, Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 and Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.

Walther Kruse is remembered for his work in 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...

 and his research of intestinal bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

 infections. He performed extensive studies of Shigella dysenteriae

Shigella dysenteriae

Shigella dysenteriae is a species of the rod-shaped bacterial genus Shigella. Shigella can cause shigellosis . Shigellae are Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile bacteria.S...

during an epidemic of dysentery in the Ruhr area

Ruhr Area

The Ruhr, by German-speaking geographers and historians more accurately called Ruhr district or Ruhr region , is an urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With 4435 km² and a population of some 5.2 million , it is the largest urban agglomeration in Germany...

 of Germany. This organism is sometimes referred to as the "Shiga-Kruse bacillus", and its associated disease as "Shiga-Kruse dysentery". These eponyms are shared with Japanese bacteriologist Kiyoshi Shiga

Kiyoshi Shiga

was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist.-Biography:Shiga was born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, though his original family name was Satō. He graduated from the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University in 1896 and went to work at the Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases under Dr....

 (1871-1957). Kruse documented his findings in a 1900 treatise titled Über die Ruhr als Volkskrankheit und ihren Erreger.

In 1914 he demonstrated that the common cold

Common cold

The common cold is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system, caused primarily by rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Common symptoms include a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and fever...

 could be transmitted to healthy individuals via nasal secretions that were free of bacteria. The results of these experiments were published in a treatise called Die Erreger von Husten und Schnopfen. Also, a specialized tool used to spread material over the surface of a culture medium is called "Kruse's brush".