Loffler, Friedrich August Johannes, LUF luhr, FREE drihk OW goost yoh HAH nuhs, (1852-1915), a German bacteriologist, identified the diphtheria bacillus in 1884, with the help of Edwin Krebs. Loffler found a way to cultivate diphtheria bacteria, and he perfected a method of staining them so that they could be more easily observed under a microscope. He also developed a staining technique to demonstrate flagella, the whiplike structures that propel some bacteria. In 1898, Loffler and bacteriologist Paul Frosch became the first scientists to identify a virus as a cause of disease in animals. The virus they identified causes foot-and-mouth disease in cattle. Loffler was born on June 24, 1852, in Frankfurt (an der Oder), Germany. He died on April 9, 1915.