Carl Frederic Schmidt

Carl Frederic Schmidt (born  July 29, 1893 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania , †  April 4, 1988 in Radnor, Pennsylvania ) was an American pharmacologist who is considered to be the co-founder of clinical pharmacology .

He worked from 1919 to 1959 as a lecturer or professor at the University of Pennsylvania , and among other things, he devoted himself to the function of the kidneys , the regulation of breathing and the blood supply to the brain . In addition, he contributed to its use for medicinal purposes in the 1920s by isolating and characterizing ephedrine . In recognition of his research achievements, he was accepted into the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , among others , and was awarded the Schmiedeberg plaque in 1962 .

Life

Carl Frederic Schmidt, whose paternal grandfather emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1870 and settled in Philadelphia , was born in Lebanon in the US state of Pennsylvania in 1893 as the son of a jeweler . He completed his academic training at Lebanon Valley College in Annville near Harrisburg and at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania , and graduated in 1918. After a practical year at the University of Pennsylvania Clinic, he accepted a position as a lecturer in pharmacology offered by Alfred Newton Richards there in 1919 .

In this position, in addition to his teaching duties, he also began his own research activities. From 1922 to 1924 he spent a research stay at the Peking Union Medical College in China . After his return to the University of Pennsylvania he was appointed associate professor there in 1929 and full professor in 1931, from 1939 he headed the department of pharmacology. In 1959 he was retired . He then worked until 1962 as editor of the journal Circulation Research and from 1962 to 1969 as research director of the Naval Air Developmental Center in Bucks County .

Carl Frederic Schmidt was married for 62 years until his wife's death in 1982 and was the father of a son and a daughter. He died in Radnor in 1988 .

Scientific work

Carl Frederic Schmidt initially worked at the University of Pennsylvania on studies of the function of the kidney and the effects of interactions between carbon dioxide and active substances such as morphine and heroin on breathing .

During his stay in China he succeeded in isolating the ephedrine from the sea ​​riot . It was a sympathomimetically active substance that had been discovered by Nagayoshi Nagai in 1885 . As a result of his subsequent work on the characterization of the pharmacological properties, ephedrine was introduced into medical therapy in the 1920s.

Later in his career, he focused on the reflexes of the breathing and the cardiovascular system as well as the blood supply to the brain and its role in the regulation of breathing. In 1945, together with the neuroscientist Seymour S. Kety , he described a method for measuring blood flow in the brain, which was later called the “Kety-Schmidt technique”. Other studies looked at kidney blood flow, the pharmacodynamics of morphine and related drugs, and the relationship between the partial pressure of oxygen and the oxygen saturation of hemoglobin . During the Second World War and after his retirement, he turned to aerospace medicine issues, in particular the stress of pilots due to extreme acceleration and lack of oxygen.

From 1948 to 1950 Carl Frederic Schmidt served as President of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics , and in 1959 he became the first President of the Section on Pharmacology in the International Union of Physiological Sciences .

Awards

Carl Frederic Schmidt was a member of the National Academy of Sciences from 1949 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1955 , and in 1965 was elected honorary president of the newly founded International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology . Lebanon Valley College, the University of Pennsylvania and Charles University in Prague awarded him honorary doctorates , and in 1984 he received a Distinguished Graduate Award from the medical faculty of his alma mater . He was awarded the Schmiedeberg badge by the German Pharmacological Society in 1962 . In the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania, previously headed by him, an honorary lecture named after him has existed since 1976 ( Carl F. Schmidt Honorary Lectureship ).

literature

• George B. Koelle: Carl Frederic Schmidt. July 29, 1893 - April 4, 1988. In: Biographical Memoirs. Volume 68. National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC 1995, ISBN 0-585-27331-6 , pp. 273-288, PMID 11616353 (with picture and selected bibliography)
• Burr Van Atta: Dr. CF Schmidt, 94, Space-Medicine Pathfinder. Obituary in: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Issued April 16, 1988