Julius Wagner-Jauregg

Julius Wagner-Jauregg was born in Austria on 7 March 1857 and trained as a physician in an era when late-stage syphilis left patients with dementia paralytica—a fatal brain infection with no cure. He discovered that inoculating them with malaria triggered high fevers that killed the syphilis parasite, giving some patients years they wouldn't have had. In 1927 he became the first psychiatrist to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the work. He died on 27 September 1940, his method already fading as penicillin arrived.