Alfred Fröhlich (pharmacologist)

Alfred Merry

Alfred Fröhlich (born August 15, 1871 in Vienna , † March 22, 1953 in Cincinnati ) was an Austrian pathologist and pharmacologist . The Fröhlich syndrome , characterized by obesity due to a pituitary or hypothalamic tumor, is named after him.

Life

Fröhlich completed his medical studies at the University of Vienna in 1895 . He then worked for Hermann Nothnagel , Lothar von Frankl-Hochwart and Samuel Siegfried Karl von Basch . The description of a case of a pituitary tumor without acromegaly with typical pathological fat distribution pattern, on which the description of this clinical picture as Fröhlich syndrome is based, originates from the time in the nerve ambulance at Frankl-Hochwart (as the sixth scientific work by Fröhlich) .

Fröhlich was long friends with Harvey Cushing , whom he had met during a stay with Sir Charles Scott Sherrington in Liverpool in 1901 . In 1904 he began studies of the autonomic nervous system with John Newport Langley in Cambridge .

From 1905 he worked in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Vienna, first under Hans Horst Meyer , then under Ernst Peter Pick (1872–1960). With Otto Loewi he discovered the sensitization of tissues - especially the iris - to adrenaline through cocaine . Outside of his own laboratory, he spent time at the Naples Zoological Station , the Helgoland Marine Biology Institute and the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory .

In 1906 he qualified as a professor for experimental pathology and in 1910 for pharmacology. He was a co-founder and longstanding Secretary General of the Vienna Biological Society . Due to his work in the field of pharmacology of the autonomic nervous system and endocrinology, he was appointed associate professor in 1911 and full professor in 1922. In 1939 he had to emigrate to the USA. There he continued his research on the central nervous system at the May Institute of Medical Research of the Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati.

Alfred Fröhlich loved music and literature. He took lessons in harmony from Anton Bruckner and was friends with Rudyard Kipling . In the last years of his life he began to go blind , but with the help of his wife Ilse geb. Baroness von Tiesenhausen, who had emigrated with him from Austria, continue his studies. He died after a short illness.

Works

• A case of tumor of the pituitary cerebri without acromegaly . In: Wiener Klinische Rundschau, 1901, 15: 883–886; 906-908.
• About an increase in adrenaline sensitivity through cocaine. In: Archives for Experimental Pathology and Pharmacology 1911; 62: 159-169.
• Pocket book of the economical and rational recipe . Berlin, 1921; 2nd edition, Berlin and Vienna, 1923.
• Pharmacology of the Central Nervous System . In: Manual of normal and pathological physiology. Volume 10, Vienna, 1927.
• Pharmacology of the vegetative (autonomic) nervous system . In: Manual of normal and pathological physiology. Volume 10, Vienna, 1927.
• Generally crippling and excitable poisons . In: Manual of normal and pathological physiology. Volume 9, Vienna, 1929.

literature

• Ernest P. Pick, Otto Loewi, Josef Warkany Alfred Froehlich: 1871–1953 . In: Science, 1953, 118 (3064): 314.
• F. Bridge Alfred Fröhlich † . In: Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift, 1953, 56 (16): 306.
• Franz Th. Brücke:  Happy, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 648 ( digitized version ).
• Klaus Starke: A history of Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology. In: Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology 1998; 358; 1-109; here pp. 37–38.
• Isidor Fischer and Peter Voswinckel: Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the last fifty years. Hildesheim, Olms Verlag 2002.
• Klausöffelholz and Ullrich Trendelenburg: Persecuted German-speaking pharmacologists 1933–1945. Frechen, Dr. Schrör Verlag 2008, ISBN 3-9806004-8-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Alfred Fröhlich in the catalog of the German National Library
• Alfred Fröhlich at whonamedit.com