So the emphasis here would be the generous "embarrassing confusion between the real author, and the more famous figure sharing their surname" compared to the other answer's indictment that this "invented" and "conjured" name is an "utter embarrassment"?

@fredsbend Yes. I don't consider it particularly "generous" to assume this was an honest mistake, and think "confusion" is a vastly more appropriate term than "invention", given the relative fame of the two figures, and that the paper lists no first name in the original version. It's closer to attributing a piece of music to Johann Sebastian Bach which was actually written by his cousin than being found to falsify research.

Since he did nothing of any significance for medical science, and the reason for his fame is not scientific of any sort, yes, this wording is too generous. At least one person was very careless/stupid, and numerous others following never questioned a clairvoyant writing medical literature is utterly embarrassing.

And nobody suggested falsified research. Plagiarism, which I didn't get, is the strongest charge. And Bach is actually known for composing music.

[From the section on chickenpox in Steiner's compendium; p. 358:]"It is undoubtedly a contagious and transmissible disease, and I have repeatedly communicated it by inoculation, the eruption usually in such cases appearing over the whole surface about the eight day."

@fredbend Whether or not incorrect citation is "embarrassing" is purely subjective and to include such in an Answer would be emotionalist editorializing. The self-Answer is not that blatant (in its current form at least), but it does seem to be using an overly sensationalized way of bringing the same facts, possibly to promote the concept they mention in the Question of a "crisis in virology). Such is too far. One should state the facts, and then allow the reader to determine how big a deal first name mixup actually is.

Given this information, I wonder if it'd be possible to contact the CDC and NVIC with details of their error so that they can correct the mistakes on their pages.

@fredsbend Regarding "nobody suggested falsified research", one of LangLangC's comments calls it "repeated academic misconduct"; that's what made me mention Andrew Wakefield. Regarding not questioning it, I can think of at least two decent excuses: they don't much about Rudolf Steiner so it didn't jump out at them (I certainly didn't until this came up); it did jump out at them, but they assumed it was a coincidence, like finding someone called Michael Jackson and thinking "haha, did he do this before or after Thriller".

It's worth remembering that references in the 21st century are handled by a reference manager, which has to parse out one of several reference formats that are full of ambiguity, and frequently fail to do so correctly. In short, I think we can just blame endnote and move on with our lives.

@IMSoP Misattribution to Bach is almost a meme in and of itself nowadays...

@nick012000 [email protected] is the email address to use for that, I believe.

It might actually be worth checking the full name of Johann Steiner. Similarly as Rudolf Steiner has two more first names (Joseph Lorenz), Johann might also have multiple first names (which is customary of the time). This might explain the different first-name attributions in the literature - the first name the person goes by does also not necessarily need to be their first overall name (i.e. Patrick Gustav Rudolf Johann Steiner would not even be that unusual). Pure speculation at this point, and I haven’t found his full name with a quick Google search.

@Narusan Dr. Johann Steiner published under exactly that name. In his book "Compendium der Kinderkrankheiten", published in Leipzig in 1872 (for a later English edition, see my previous comment), he writes on pp. 390-391 that based on his research, smallpox (variola) and chickenpox (varicella) do appear to be different diseases, and that he has managed to transmit varicella between patients using fluid from varicella blisters, with an observed incubation time of eight days.