Christiaan Eijkman

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Christiaan Eijkman

Christiaan Eijkman (born August 11, 1858 in Nijkerk , † November 5, 1930 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch doctor, pathologist, bacteriologist and hygienist. In 1929 he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine with Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins .

Life

Christiaan Eijkman was born as the seventh child of the teacher Christiaan Eijkman (1822-1893) and his wife Johanna Alida Pool. From 1861 the family moved to Zaandam , where his father became director of a newly built elementary school that Christiaan attended. Eijkman attended the medical military school in Amsterdam from 1875 , which was attached to the Athenaeum Illustre Amsterdam . In 1879 he became an assistant to the Amsterdam professor Thomas Place (1842-1911), completed his medical examination on January 31, 1883 and was promoted to second class military doctor on March 28, 1883. On July 13, 1883 he received his doctorate in medicine on the subject of Over polarisatie in de zenuwen (German: About polarization in the nerves ) and was transferred to Semarang in the same year , where he worked as a medical officer at the local hospital.

He later worked in the small Indonesian village of Tjilatjap , where he fell ill with malaria, so that he returned to Europe in 1885 to recover health. Then he trained under Josef Forster in Amsterdam and then with Robert Koch in Berlin . During this time he met Cornelis Adrianus Pekelharing and Cornelis Winkler (1855–1941), with whom he returned to Indonesia in October 1886 to investigate the bacteriological causes of beriberi disease in a laboratory in Batavia .

In January 1888 Eijkman became director of the newly established laboratory for pathological anatomy and bacteriology ( Eijkman Instituut ) in Weltevreden, as well as instructor of the Indonesian doctors at the Djawa military medical school in Batavia. During that time he wrote two textbooks for his students and studied the climatic effects of tropical diseases. Eijkman noticed in 1897 that feeding polished rice to chickens produces beriberi. This vitamin B 1 deficiency effect could be remedied by feeding the silver skin of the rice. Together with his colleague Gerrit Grijns , he discovered an anti-beriberi factor , which was later identified by Casimir Funk as vitamin B 1 ( thiamine ). Eijkman erroneously assumed that a pathogen produced a neurotoxic toxin on cooked rice .

However, he could not continue his work, because on August 5, 1898 he was appointed professor of hygiene, medical politics and forensic medicine at the University of Utrecht , which he did with the introductory speech Over gezondheid en ziekte gewesten (German: On Health and Diseases in the Provinces ). Eijkman became a member of the Dutch Health Council, in which he was committed to clean drinking water and school hygiene. In the fight against tuberculosis in particular, he founded an association devoted to combating the disease. He also participated in the organizational tasks of the Utrecht University and was rector of the alma mater in the academic year 1912/13 . In 1895 he became a corresponding and in 1907 a full member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences , in 1924 an honorary member of the Royal Sanitary Institute in London and in 1921 a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. In 1920 he became a Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion , in 1923 he was awarded the John Scott Medal of the American Philosophical Society and in 1928 he was appointed Commander of the Order of Oranje-Nassau . For his discovery of the anti-neuritic vitamin (thiamine), he and Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1929 .

Christiaan Eijkman, painted by Jan Veth , 1923

The molecular biology Eijkman Institute (Lembaga Biologiolekuler Eijkman), where he made his discovery, was named after him in 1938 and is now a renowned research institute in Indonesia . The Eijkman test was named after him, a microbiological method used to distinguish Escherichia coli from other Enterobacteriaceae . The test can be combined with the IMViC test in order, among other things, to achieve faster interim results than with IMViC alone. He has also been the namesake of Eijkman Point , a headland on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, since 1959 . The lunar crater Eijkman has been named after him since 1970 and the asteroid (9676) Eijkman since 2000 .

literature

  • C. Eijkman: Report of the investigations carried out in the laboratory of pathology and bacteriology, Weltevreden, during the year 1895. VI. Polyneuritis in chickens. New contributions to the etiology of the disease. 1896. In: Nutrition reviews. Volume 48, Number 6, June 1990, pp. 243-246, PMID 1365749 .
  • AM Luyendijk-Elshout: Eijkman, Christiaan (1858-1930) . In: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland Den Haag, 1985, Vol. 2, (Dutch)
  • JJ van Loghem: In Memoriam. Christiaan Eijkman 11 August 1858 - 5 November 1930. In: Nederlands Tijdschrift voor voor geneeskunde. Vol. 74 (1930), pp. 5464–5465 ( PDF , Dutch)
  • JM Baart de la Faille: Christiaan Eijkman . In: Dutch heroes of the wetenschap. Levensschetsen van negen Nobelprijswinnaars. Hoogtepunten van wetenschappelijken work in Nederland. Amsterdam, 1946 (Dutch)
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Eijkman, Christian. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 338.

Web links

Commons : Christiaan Eijkman  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ C. Eijkman: Polyneuritis bij hoenders. In: Geneesk. tschr. Ned.-Indië. Volume 30, 1890, p. 295, Volume 32, 1893, p. 353, and Volume 36, 1896, p. 214.
  2. ↑ MM El-Abagy, HT el-Zanfaly, S. el-Hawaary: Direct MPN for faecal coliform . In: Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infectious Diseases and Hygiene . tape 135 , no. 5 , January 1980, p. 396-401 , doi : 10.1016 / S0323-6056 (80) 80095-4 .
  3. ^ FM Ramadan, MM El-Abagy, FA Saleh ', Zakia A. Helmy: On the transformation of coliform types, proper and irregular forms . In: Zentralblatt für Bakteriologie, Parasitenkunde, Infectious Diseases and Hygiene . tape 134 , no. January 8 , 1979, pp. 740-747 , doi : 10.1016 / S0323-6056 (79) 80034-8 .
  4. ↑ Christiaan Eijkman in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS
  5. ↑ Christiaan Eijkman at the IAU Minor Planet Center (English)
personal data
SURNAME Eijkman, Christiaan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch hygienist, Nobel Prize in Medicine
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Nijkerk
DATE OF DEATH 5th November 1930
Place of death Utrecht