Hendrik Marius Quanjer

Hendrik Marius Quanjer (1879 to 1961) was a Dutch plant pathologist and one of the first to bring virology into a field that had concentrated on bacterial and fungal disease. Born at Enkhuizen, he studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Amsterdam, qualified as a pharmacist without practising, and took his doctorate in 1906 with a dissertation on the diseases of cabbage. He moved to the new Institute for Phytopathology at Wageningen as an assistant in 1906, lectured briefly at Leiden from 1910, and in 1918 became professor of plant pathology and mycology at Wageningen. He detected viral leaf curl diseases of potato in 1916, served as rector magnificus in 1937 and retired in 1948. He was also a painter, working on portraits and floral subjects.