Karl Ludwig Gotthard Sander was generally known as Ludwig Sander, or Louis Sander according to the Gesamtverzeichnis..., (1979-1987). He studied medicine at the universities of Breslau, Greifswald and Jena, and qualified at the latter institution in 1882 with a dissertation on Zwei Fälle von Myotomie (Two cases of muscle surgery). He joined the German navy that same year and became a marinestabartz, or navy staff surgeon. In 1893 he was sent to German South West Africa (now Namibia) by the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft (German Colonial Company) to investigate an epidemic of lungsickness in cattle (bovine pleuropneumonia). He arrived in the territory in December that year for a stay of nine months, mainly in the vicinity of Windhoek. Thousands of cattle were inoculated and the outbreak brought under control. Sander used the opportunity also to study horse-sickness and in 1895 published a paper on "Südafrikanische Epizootien mit besondere Berücksichtigung der Pferdesterbe" (South African epizootics, with special consideration of horse deaths; Archiv für Wissenschaftliche und Praktische Thierheilkunde). In "Ein Vorschlag zur wirtschaftlichen Erschliessung Deutsch-Südwestafrikas" (A proposal for the economic development of German South West Africa; Berlin, 1895) he advocated the construction of large dams, particularly one at Avispoort, near Windhoek, to bring about more intensive agriculture and denser settlement of the country. His proposals led to the founding of the Syndikat für Bewässerungs-Anlagen in Deutsch-Südwestafrika in June 1895, which sent the engineer Tehodor Rhebock* to the territory to investigate the feasibility of large water works.
Sander returned to Namibia in 1896 and until 1899 was manager of the Siedelungsgesellschaft (Settlement company) for the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Südwestafrika. In 1897, when rinderpest swept across southern Africa, he wrote Die Rinderpest und ihr Einfluss auf die wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse in Deutsch-Südwestafrika (The rinderpest and its effects on the economic situation in German South West Africa; Berlin, 1897, 44 pp).
From 1901 to 1902 Sander was in German East Africa and from 1904 to 1910 served as secretary of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft. During these years he remained involved with veterinary affairs in the German colonies. Among his publications during this period were Die Wanderheuschrecken und ihre Bekämpfung in unseren afrikanischen Kolnien (The migrating locusts and their control in our African colonies; Berlin, 1902, 544 pp), Die geographische verbreitung einiger tierischer schädlinge unserer kolonialen landwirtschaft und die bedingungen ihres vorkommen (The geographical spreading of some harmful conditions to animals in our colonial economy and the conditions for their prevention; Halle, 1903), and Die Tsetsen (Glossinae Wiedemann) (The tsetse fly; Leipzig, 1905, 80 pp). Later he also published an extensive illustrated description of the German colonies (1908), and a two-volume work on the history of the Deutsche Kolonialgesellschaft für Sudwestafrika, with some excellent maps (1912).
