Friedrich Christoph Pelizaeus (3 April 1851 – 11 August 1942) was a German balneologist and neurologist who was a native of Rietberg.

In 1874 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Würzburg, and afterwards served as an assistant to Karl Friedrich Ferdinand Runge (1835-1882) at the resort in Nassau an der Lahn. Later he worked as a balneologist at Ilmenau, Kreischa and Bad Oeynhausen.^[1] In 1896 he received the title of Sanitätsrat (health advisor). Pelizaeus died in Kassel on 11 August 1942.

In 1885 he provided the first description of a dysmyelinating central nervous system disorder that was to become known as "Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease", named in conjunction with neuropathologist Ludwig Merzbacher (1875–1942).