Theodor Koch-Grunberg

Theodor Koch-Grünberg (April 9, 1872, in Grünberg, Hesse, German Empire – October 8, 1924, in Caracaraí, Brazil) was a German ethnologist and explorer who travelled and studied the Indigenous peoples in South America, in particular the Pemon of Venezuela and other indigenous peoples in the Amazon region extending South-Western Brazil and a large part of the Vaupés region in Colombia.

In 1906, he published photogravures of a number of natives he encountered on the expedition in his monumental "Indianertypen aus dem Amazonasgebiet nach eigenen Aufnahmen während seiner Reise in Brasilien" (1906).

[2] A written account of Koch-Grünberg's trip, which included his study of the Baniwa, was published in two volumes in 1910-11 under the title of Zwei Jahre Unter Den Indianern.

Based on his account Two Years Among the Indians... he appeared not to have taken precautions against malaria, but in From Roraima to the Orinoco (page 88, German edition), he describes how he protected himself with quinine, following a German tropical medicine handbook for non-doctors (A. Plehn: Kurzgefasste Vorschriften zur Verhütung und Behandlung der wichtigsten tropischen Krankheiten bei Europäern und Eingeborenen für Nichtärzte).

Koch-Grünberg died suddenly in Brazil in 1924 after contracting malaria on an expedition with the American explorer, geographer, and physician Alexander H. Rice Jr. and the Portuguese-Brazilian cinematographer Silvino Santos to map the upper reaches of the Rio Branco.