Alfons Maria Jakob

German neurologist whose neuropathological research contributed greatly to the delineation of several diseases, including multiple sclerosis and Friedreich's ataxia. He first recognised and described Alper's disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (named along with Munich neuropathologist Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt). He gained experience in neurosyphilis, having a 200-bed ward devoted entirely to that disorder. Jakob made a lecture tour of the United States (1924) and South America (1928), of which, he wrote a paper on the neuropathology of yellow fever.

He suffered from chronic osteomyelitis for the last seven years of his life. This eventually caused a retroperitoneal abscess and paralytic ileus from which he died following an operation on 17 October 1931, aged 47, in Hamburg.