Alfred Kahl

Alfred Detlef Fritz Kahl was a German schoolteacher who took up microscopy in midlife and became a leading authority on ciliated protozoa. In a burst of scientific productivity that lasted just nine years, he published 1800 pages of scholarly work, in which he describednew ciliate families, 57 genera, and about 700 previously unknown species. During his brief career as a protozoologist, he redescribed and illustrated nearly all the species of ciliates known in his time, and fit them into a taxonomic scheme that remains influential today.

Kahl was born in the municipality of Warwerort, in the Dithmarschen district of Germany, a region of the country that includes the city of Hamburg. Official records show that he taught primary school in Hamburg, from 1897 to 1901, and that by 1934 he was teaching English, French and Natural History at a Gymnasium in Hamburg. Nothing else is known about his early life. His interest in ciliates began, according to his own account, when his daughter was studying under Dr. Eduard Reichenow, then head of the protozoa department at the Hamburg Tropical Institute The very interesting literature and preparations my daughter Lucia brought home fascinated me, as a dedicated biologist, and created the desire to study this field more deeplyThus, I enthusiastically commenced literature reading and investigation of the small water bodies in my surroundings at the beginning of the year 1924. Within nine months, I got a rather solid knowledge in drawing and identifying many species.

Source: Wikipedia