On 3 March 1905, Fritz Schaudinn, Erich Hoffmann and Fred Neufeld, working in the women's ward of the Department of Dermatology at the Charite Hospital in Berlin, became the first people in the world to observe the causative agent of syphilis, Treponema pallidum. The pathogen's etiological significance was subsequently demonstrated by Schaudinn and Hoffmann and other scientists. The detection of Treponema pallidum was the first decisive step towards the development of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in subsequent years.