Erwin Heinz Ackerknecht was born in Sczecin (then Stettin) in 1906. Ackerknecht obtained his M.D. from the university of Leipzig in 1931 and fled Germany, where he had been active in the Kommunistiche Partei Deutschlands (KPD), in 1933. After studies at the Sorbonne and service with the French Armed Forces, Ackerknecht emigrated to the United States in 1941.
Ackerknecht became a research fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Institute of the History of Medicine and also held a position as assistant curator for physical anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. University of Wisconsin-Madison offered Ackerknecht a full professorship in 1947 making him the first chair in the History of Medicine on the UW campus. Ackerknecht left Wisconsin in 1957 to become professor and director of the Institute of Medicine and Biology at the University of Zuerich, a position he held until his retirement in 1971.
Throughout his career, Ackerknecht's work spanned many subjects including ethnomedicine, public health in 19th century France, and the impact of medicine on ecology.
