Bruno Kisch

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Bruno Zacharias Kisch (born August 28, 1890 in Prague , † August 12, 1966 in Bad Nauheim ) was an experimental cardiologist and physiologist and co-founder of the German Society for Cardiovascular Research .

Life path

The offspring of a traditional family of academics and officers, despite reluctance to study at Charles University , achieved a brilliant rise and devoted himself to research at institutions in Prague, Naples, Frankfurt and Cologne. In 1928 he married the concert and oratorio singer Ruth Kisch-Arndt . As for many others, the rise of National Socialism turned into a life tragedy that cost him his career, forced into emigration and the murder of family members in the extermination camps. Only through his never-ending contacts with long-standing German friends was Kisch, who remained an academic outsider in the USA for a long time, finally possible after the war his personal reconciliation with the country of the perpetrators.

Early academic career and participation in the war

Kisch was born as the son of the high school professor of the Stefansgymnasium and rabbi of the Maisel Synagogue and his wife Charlotte in Prague. He was the younger brother of the lawyer Guido Kisch and a cousin of the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch . In 1908 Kisch began studying medicine in Prague. In order to deepen his knowledge through botanical , physiological and biochemical investigations on plants and animals, he worked during his studies at Hans Molisch's Botanical Institute and the Physiological Institute with Franz Bruno Hofmann . Research trip financed by grants took him to the zoological research stations in Trieste and Naples . Immediately after receiving his doctorate in 1913, he went to the Academy for Medical Training in Cologne as assistant to Heinrich Ewald Hering , who at that time gave up his position as dean and university director and now accepted a professorship for pathophysiology . Their relationship was always tense; Like many others, Kisch was repelled by Hering's authoritarian style and later inevitably had to compete with his teacher.

During the First World War , Kisch volunteered for military service as an imperial and royal infantry doctor. He had the opportunity to pursue his studies as a soldier and submitted his 1918 habilitation thesis by post from the theater of war in Russia. The license to teach from Cologne also reached him by field post . He experienced the end of the war in Pilsen , where he treated victims of the Spanish flu . After the war ended, Kisch was financially ruined as he had invested his legacy in war bonds .

Between the wars

After the war, Kisch first worked in Cologne, where he was appointed associate professor in 1922 . In 1923 he went to the Physiological-Chemical Institute at the University of Frankfurt . On the recommendation of Friedrich Moritz and Konrad Adenauer , Kisch was appointed full professor of physiology at the re-founded university in 1925 . In Cologne he gave lectures and courses in vegetative, chemical and pathological physiology as well as in general biology and, alternatively, in pharmacology . Scientific study trips took him again to Naples. In 1927 he played a key role in founding the German Society for Cardiovascular Research, the first national association for circulatory medicine. Together with the internist Eduard Stadler , he published the journal for circulatory research .

In 1934 Kisch received a visiting professorship at the University of Santander . After the National Socialists came to power , Kisch was deprived of the Venia Legendi at the end of 1935 as a result of anti-Jewish legislation by the National Socialist rulers , whereupon he opened a cardiology practice in Cologne, which he had to close again in 1937 after the prohibition of the profession of Jewish doctors. With the help of his colleague Franz Maximilian Groedel , who had already emigrated , Kisch was able to obtain a visa to enter the USA and a research grant at Yeshiva University in New York City. Bruno Kisch and his family emigrated to the United States in December 1938 .

Emigration and late years

In the foreign country Kisch had to contend with numerous difficulties. One result of this was the founding of the American College of Cardiology , which was built up by emigrants who were largely excluded from the scientific community and whose president Kisch was for two years. However, the access to one of the new electron microscopes had a very inspiring effect , the possibilities of which Kisch owed new impetus to his research and therefore publication activities, which had been stagnating for years. As an assistant at Yale University , he himself was involved in the development of this innovation.

In 1952, Kisch returned to Germany as a guest at the DGHKF's annual meeting in Bad Nauheim and was made an honorary member. From the beginning of the 1960s he was in Bad Nauheim almost every year, where he also sought help in the spring of 1966 to cure the consequences of a delayed pneumonia . On August 12, 1966, he succumbed to the consequences of the disease in the Groedel Sanatorium in Bad Nauheim. He found his final resting place in Jerusalem .

Scientific achievement

Medical research

Bruno Kisch's professional interest was entirely in experimental medicine. With the circulatory reflexes he did important preparatory work for successes that helped others, especially Hering, of whom he personally thought little, to scientific world fame. He was also one of the first steps towards the development of induced cardioplegia and was the first to describe the so-called overdrive suppression in the electrophysiology of the heart.

In his later research, Kisch made enthusiastic use of the newly developed electron microscopy, which was only accessible to a few, whose usefulness he recognized early and which helped him to a new bloom in his research. Science owes its work on the ultrastructure of the heart to the discovery of the mitochondria of the heart muscle fibers and their function (1952). He also first described the granules of the atrium (1963).

Kisch's research was not just about human biology; he also examined the hearts of fish and frogs with a microscope, as he had shown great curiosity for marine animals ever since his first visit to Naples; His discovery of phosphocreatine in the electrical organ of the ray is evidence of this . In his later work he also worked on the ultrastructure of animal flight muscles as well as on the ultrastructures of the capillaries .

Not to be underestimated is the benefit that research has accrued through the founding of the DGHKF and the ACC by Kisch. The research award for experimental heart medicine, awarded every two years by the German Cardiac Society, bears his name in memory of Bruno Kisch.

Other areas

As a versatile educated mind, Kisch did not limit himself to his professional field. His efforts produced noteworthy results in entirely different fields, such as numismatics and even literature. In an appreciation by the Society for Cardiology, he was therefore called a “complete person” after the ideal of a universal scholar of the Renaissance.

As a practicing Jew, Kisch was active in the field of religion in public, in Germany a. a. with the founding of the Cologne Jewish Lehrhaus, as in the USA. He gave lectures, carried out community and genealogical research, and was dedicated to preserving the memory of great Jewish scholars, including the famous Rabbi Löw among his ancestors.

Kisch bequeathed some files from his extensive archive to the City Archives of Cologne; other parts of his estate were given to the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem by his widow Ruth Kisch-Arndt.

Others

The German Society for Cardiology awards the Bruno Kisch Medal for special service to the reputation and further development of the society.

The Bruno-Kisch-Weg in Cologne-Lindenthal has been named after him since October 2016 .

Publications

The following list represents a selection mainly of the more important scientific publications by Kisch. Further titles can be found in the catalog of the German National Library.

  • Technical terms of physical chemistry. A dictionary. Springer, Berlin 1919.
  • Physiology of the outer and middle ear. In: Gustav Alexander (ed.): Handbook of the neurology of the ear. Volume 1, 1. Urban & Schwarzenberg, Berlin et al. 1924, pp. 337-382.
  • Pharmacology of the heart. In: Albrecht Bethe et al .: Handbook of normal and pathological physiology. Volume 7: Blood Circulation. Part 1 = C / I.2: heart. Springer, Berlin 1926, pp. 721-862.
  • Cycle. In: Albrecht Bethe et al .: Handbook of normal and pathological physiology. Volume 7: Blood Circulation. Part 2 = C / I.2: blood vessels. Cycle. Springer, Berlin 1927, pp. 1161-1222.
  • Science and worldview. Speech on the occasion of the 25th Existence of the association for nature and local history in Cologne a. Rh. Leipzig, Barth, 1931.
  • The cardiac alternation (= results of circulatory research. 2, ZDB -ID 503318-4 ). Steinkopff, Dresden et al. 1932.
  • The role of sarcosomes in the heart muscle. In: Pflüger's archive for the entire physiology of humans and animals . Vol. 255, No. 2, 1952, pp. 130-133, doi : 10.1007 / BF00412965 .
  • The ultramicroscopic structure of the heart and capillaries. An electron microscopic examination and its evaluation for physiology. Steinkopff, Darmstadt 1957.
  • The perinuclear space of the heart muscle fibers. A short report. In: Journal for Circulatory Research . Vol. 53, 1963, pp. 205-211,.
  • The perinuclear space in the atrium of coldblooded animals. In: Experimental Medicine and Surgery. Vol. 23, 1965, ISSN  0014-4878 , pp. 243-247.
  • Wanderings and changes. The story of a doctor in the 20th century. Greven, Cologne 1966, (autobiography).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e German biography: Kisch, Bruno - German biography. Retrieved May 8, 2019 .
  2. ^ Vita Bruno Kisch. Retrieved May 8, 2019 .
  3. ^ Joseph Eitel: Bruno Kisch for his 70th birthday. In: Archive for Circulatory Research. Vol. 33, No. 1/2, 1960, pp. 1-3.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Schaper, Jutta Schaper: Bruno Kisch, life and work. An attempt . In: Journal of Cardiology. Vol. 84, Suppl. 1, 1995, pp. 1-10.
  5. ^ Bruno Kisch Medal, DGK
  6. ↑ Michael Officer: Honor for an Immi: Bruno-Kisch-Weg inaugurated. October 5, 2016, accessed on May 8, 2019 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Kisch, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kisch, Bruno Zacharias (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech-German cardiologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1966
Place of death Bad Nauheim