BAER (ABRAHAM), ADOLF:

By: Isidore Singer, Frederick T. Haneman

German physician and medico-forensic author; born in the province of Posen, Prussia, Dec. 26, 1834; educated at the universities of Vienna, Prague, and Berlin. From the last-named institution he received his degree of doctor of medicine in 1861. Baer engaged in practise as a physician in Naugard, province of Pomerania, Prussia, in the following year, and in 1866 became physician of the prison there. In 1872 he was appointed chief physician of the prison at Plötzensee, near Berlin, and in 1879 was elected physician to the board of health, with the title "Geheimer Sanitätsrath." In the course of his prison duties Baer noticed the alarming connection between alcohol and crime, and in consequence turned his attention to the prevention of the use of intoxicants, contributing many articles on this subject to the medical and other journals.

Among Baer's many essays and books may be mentioned the following: "Die Gefängnisse, Strafanstalten, und Strafsysteme, Ihre Einrichtung und Wirkung in Hygienischer Beziehung," Berlin, 1871; "Der Alkoholismus, Seine Verbreitung und Wirkung auf den Individuellen und Sozialen Organismus, Sowie die Mittel Ihn zu Bekämpfen," Berlin, 1878; "Gefängniss-Hygiene," in Pettenkofer and Ziemssen's "Handbuch der Hygiene," Munich, 1882; "Der Alkoholmissbrauch." in "Vierteljahres schrift für Oeffentliche Gesundheits-Pflege," 1882, vol. xiv.; "Ueber das Vorkommen von Phthisis in den Gefängnissen," in "Zeitschrift für Klinische Medizin," 1883, vi.; "Gesetzliche Maassregeln zur Bekämpfung der Trunksucht," in "Preussische Jahrbücher," 1884, lvi.; "Morbidität und Mortalität in den Gefängnissen," in Holtzendorf and Von Jagemann's "Handbuch des Gefängnisswesens," Hamburg, 1888; "Die Trunksucht und Ihre Abwehr," Vienna, 1890; "Die Verbrecher in Anthropologischer Beziehung," June, 1897.

Baer is also a contributor to Eulenburg's "Realencyclopädie der Gesammten Heilkunde."

S. F. T. H.