Louis W. Sauer

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Louis Wendlin Sauer (August 13, 1885 – February 10, 1980) was an American pediatrician who helped fight whooping cough. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to medical school at Rush Medical College, finishing in 1913. He also earned an MD in Berlin and a PhD at the University of Chicago. He married Lucia Mira Seypelt in Berlin in 1912.

Sauer worked as a pediatric doctor at Evanston Hospital near Chicago and taught at Northwestern University Medical School until he retired in 1959. In 1931, after several years of work, he developed a vaccine to protect children from pertussis (whooping cough) and later helped create the DPT vaccine, which combines diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus in one shot. He believed that vaccine work should not be done for money.

After retirement, Sauer moved to Coral Gables, Florida. He died there in 1980 at the age of 94 from pneumonia and congestive heart failure.