Richard Pfeiffer conducted fundamental research on many aspects of bacteriology, most notably bacteriolysis ("Pfeiffer's phenomenon"), which is the destruction of bacteria by dissolution, usually following the introduction of sera, specific antibodies, or hypotonic solutions into host animals.

Pfeiffer was born on March 27, 1858, to a German family in the Polish town of Zduny, Poznania, a province then governed by Prussia and later by Germany as Posen, but after World War II again by Poland as Ksiestwo Poznanskie. After studying medicine at the Kaiser Wilhelm Academy in Berlin from 1875 to 1879, he served Germany as an army physician and surgeon from 1879 to 1889. He received his M.D. at Berlin in 1880, taught bacteriology at Wiesbaden, Germany, from 1884 to 1887, then returned to Berlin to become the assistant of Robert Koch (1843-1910) at the Institute of Hygiene from 1887 to 1891. Upon earning his habilitation (roughly the equivalent of a Ph.D.) in bacteriology and hygiene...