Moritz Kaposi

Born in Kaposvár, Hungary, Austrian Empire, to a Jewish family, originally his surname was Kohn; but, with his conversion to the Catholic faith, he changed it to Kaposi in 1871, in reference to his town of birth.

One purported reason behind this is that he wanted to marry a daughter of current dermatology chairman, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, and advance in the society, which he could not have done being of Jewish faith.

This seems unlikely because he married Martha Hebra and converted to Catholicism several years prior to changing his name, by which time he was already well established in the Vienna University faculty and a close associate of her father, Ferdinand.

Together with his mentor, Ferdinand Ritter von Hebra, he authored the book Lehrbuch der Hautkrankheiten (Textbook of Skin Diseases) in 1878.

According to J. D. Oriel, "in his lifetime, Moritz Kaposi was acknowledged as one of the great masters of the Vienna School of Dermatology, a superb clinician and renowned teacher".