Alfred Jaquet

Jules Alfred Jaquet (born May 31, 1865 in Saint-Imier , † April 28, 1937 in Riehen ) was a Swiss pharmacologist .

family

He was the son of the watch manufacturer James Jaquet and his wife Catherine (née Sandherr). In 1896 he married Emmy (née Paravicini; 1868–1951), and the marriage resulted in six sons.

Gravestone of Alfred Jaquet-Paravicini in Riehen

He was buried in the church in Riehen , together with his mother Catherine-Sandherr (1832-1913) and his wife Emmy.

education and profession

Jaquet first attended high school and the physical-chemical academy in Neuchâtel and began studying medicine at the University of Basel in 1883 . He also studied for a few semesters in Tübingen . In 1886 he passed the medical state examination in Basel. While still a student, he carried out an elemental analysis of hemoglobin in dogs under the direction of the biochemist Gustav von Bunge .

From 1888 Jaquet worked as an assistant to the physiologist Friedrich Miescher at the Physiological Institute of the University of Basel. The main research topics here were cell chemistry and cell respiration . In 1890 he worked at the University of Strasbourg with Friedrich von Recklinghausen with pathological anatomy and then worked in the laboratory of Oswald Schmiedeberg experimental pathological or pharmacological ( oxidation processes in tissues). He completed his habilitation in these subjects in Basel in 1892.

Until 1895 Jaquet worked as an assistant doctor at the Medical Clinic Basel with Hermann Immermann , made a study trip to Paris and Vienna in 1895 and worked until 1902 as senior physician , head of the internal clinic laboratory and the department for skin and venereal diseases . In 1898 Jaquet received an associate professorship , in 1902 he was appointed full professor of pharmacology, a position he held until 1932.

In addition to teaching pharmacology, he also worked as a private doctor in Basel from 1902 to 1906.

After his father's death, he took over his watch factory and, over time, transformed it into a company for scientific precision mechanics (James Jaquet AG, clinical and physiological apparatus), for which he developed new apparatus designs. At the same time he founded the La Charmille private clinic for heart and metabolic diseases in Riehen near Basel , which he headed until his death.

power

Jaquet was a versatile doctor, a brilliant designer of scientific apparatus, a publicist and a pharmacologist. In his habilitation thesis (1892) Jaquet first used the term alkali reserve . He opposed the contemporary doctrinal abstinence movement (1894, 1896), published pharmacological works (1898, 1902, 1926), carried out research on altitude climates (1897, 1904) and dealt with the physical therapy of cardiovascular diseases (1919 , 1920).

As a designer he developed numerous graphic recording devices : a cardio sphygmograph (1901), the sphygmo-chronograph (1902), the polygraph and the sphygmotonograph (1908), the oscillotonograph (1922) and a respiratory apparatus (1903). At the same time as Henri Vaquez, Alfred Jaquet presented a device for measuring blood pressure that combined the Riva-Roccis method with instrumental palpation and allowed the graphical registration of pulse and pressure curves . Unlike Henri Vaquez, of a forearm cuff used, which attributed the pulse signal in the meter itself, Jaquet used a pads -Pulsaufnehmer (Sphygmocardiograph), which was attached directly on the wrist and wrote there via a lever system curves on berusstes paper.

As a publicist, Jaquet devoted himself to philosophical, medical and personal questions towards the end of his life.

From 1888 Jaquet worked for the correspondence sheet for Swiss physicians , from 1893 as second editor and from 1909 to 1917 as editor. From 1902 to 1908 he was secretary of the Swiss Medical Commission.

Fonts (selection)

• On the effect of moderate acid intake on the amount of carbonic acid, carbonic acid tension, and alkalinity of the blood. A contribution to the theory of breathing . Basel 1892
• The cardio sphygmograph . Relation to Congr. D. Inn. Med. 19 (1901) 579
• On the technique of graphic pulse registration . Münchn Med Wochenschr 49 (1902) 62
• Sphygmotonograph . Physician Polytechnic 3 (1908) 45
• A mes fils, notes et souvenirs , Half a century of medicine . Basel 1929
• Knowledge and belief . 1933
• La médecine qui guérit et la médecine qui tue . 1936

literature

• A. Brückner (Ed.): Jaquet, Jules Alfred , in: New Swiss Biography . NBS, Basel 1938, p. 264
• K. Bucher: In memory of the 100th birthday of Alfred Jaquet , in: Arzneimittelforschung , Vol. 15, 1965, p. 581
• Heinrich Buess:  Jaquet, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 352 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Alfred Jaquet: Farewell . In: Schweizerische Medizinische Wochenschrift , 62nd year 1932, p. 513
• J. Karcher: In memoriam Prof. Dr. A. Jaquet . In: Swiss Medical Weekly , 67th year 1937, p. 479
• Biographical Lexicon of Deceased Swiss People , Vol. 2 (1948), p. 102

Web links

• Literature by and about Alfred Jaquet in the catalog of the German National Library