[1] Born in Berlin, Germany, Blatteis and his Jewish family were forced to flee their home to escape further Nazi persecution after his father's arrest in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht and as a condition for his release from Buchenwald concentration camp where he was a prisoner.
[2] They were among the 937 Jewish German refugees aboard the MS St. Louis who were denied entry into Cuba, the United States, Canada, and all the other Western Hemisphere countries, and consequently obliged to return to Europe.
[3] Blatteis later recalled that his introduction by Horvath to his later field of research was "trying to maintain my own body temperature as a test subject in the cold room".
[8] The bulk of his research over his years at the University of Tennessee concerned the elucidation of the physiologic mechanism that initiates fever and its associated reactions to infectious pathogens.
[1] Blatteis reported experimental results indicating that fever may be "induced by a mechanism that is independent of PGE2", an outcome described as "heresy" according to the literature of the time, and leaving open questions for further investigation.
He was twice a senior Fulbright-Hays scholar, held numerous fellowships and visiting professorships abroad, and received several honoris causa diplomas.