Gruby was born to a poor Hungarian family in 1810. After being tutored by a medical student lodging at his father’s home, he went to Pest and later Vienna to study medicine. As a Jew, he found it difficult to secure a position so turned instead to teaching microscopy, a new field at the time. He quickly built up a good reputation, and even built his own microscope.
In 1841 he was the first to identify the fungal cause of favus, an unpleasant scalp condition, by culturing it on slices of potato. He went on to identify many other important dermatophytes, as well as trypanosomes (from frog blood).
Later he moved to Paris, where he treated patients including Liszt and Chopin.
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