Otto Busse


Otto Emil Franz Ulrich Busse was a German pathologist. Busse was born in Gühlitz, Prignitz, Germany.
He studied medicine at the University of Greifswald, and subsequently became an assistant to Paul Grawitz, at Greifswald. Afterwards he moved to Posen, where in 1904 he became a professor of pathology. From 1911 until 1922 he was professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Zurich, where he died.
In 1894 Busse was the first to provide a written account of cryptococcosis, caused by a yeast-like fungus now known as Cryptococcus neoformans. This he discovered in a patient with chronic periostitis of the tibia. At the time he called the fungus Saccharomyces hominis. During the same time period, Francesco Sanfelice cultured the yeast-like fungus from peach juice, naming the fungus Saccharomyces neoformans. Infection caused by the fungus has also been referred to as "Busse-Buschke disease", named in conjunction with dermatologist Abraham Buschke.