Eduard Maria Anton Johann Reich was born on 6 March 1836 in Sternberg in Moravia (modern Šternberk, Czech Republic). He died on 1 February 1919 in Muiderberg near Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. Reich, was Doctor of Medicine, specialising in Hygiene. He was Legal Director and Vice President of KL-C. Academy, a member of the French Society of Hygiene in Paris, the Society for Public Medicin in Paris, the Aetiological-Medicinal Society in Berlin, the Berlin Medical Society. He held the post of Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Bern. He was an admirer of Darwin.