Christoph Heinrich Pfaff

Christoph Heinrich Pfaff (born March 2, 1773 in Stuttgart , † April 23, 1852 in Kiel ) was a German doctor and professor at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel . As a physicist and chemist , he researched bioelectricity . As a doctor, he made a contribution to the smallpox vaccination and the reorganization of the pharmacy system .

Life

Christoph Heinrich was the sixth son of Geh. Chief Finance Councilor Friedrich Burkhard Pfaff . Two of his eleven siblings were Johann Friedrich Pfaff and Wilhelm Andreas Pfaff , who also became university professors.

From 1782 to 1793 he attended the Karlsakademie in Stuttgart , where he had studied medicine for the last three years and became friends with Georges Cuvier . In 1793 he wrote the Dissertatio inauguralis medica de electricitate sic dicta animali . Independent of Alessandro Volta , he set up a series of tension. At the end of 1793 he enrolled at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen , where he heard from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg , Friedrich Benjamin Osiander and Samuel Hahnemann . He drafted a manuscript on The Four Main Types of Awakening Contractions, to which all others can be reduced, and was in contact with Friedrich Albrecht Carl Gren for publication . In 1795 he published a monograph on animal electricity and irritability, which Alexander von Humboldt praised as exemplary and influenced him, and dealt with the early romantic physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter , with Goethe's color theory and with Julius Robert Mayer's energy principle.

Copenhagen and Kiel

From late autumn 1794 to late summer 1795 Pfaff was in Copenhagen, where he worked at the clinical institutes. Here he met the diplomat Count Friedrich Karl von Reventlow . From 1795 to 1797 he was the Count's medical companion on his trip to Italy . He then settled as a doctor in Heidenheim , but soon gave up the practice again. At the effort of Reventlow and Philipp Gabriel Hensler (1733–1805) he was appointed associate professor of medicine at the University of Kiel in the spring of 1798 , initially without a salary. Even under the influence of the senior of the medical faculty Georg Heinrich Weber , Pfaff adhered to the smallpox vaccination with human smallpox lymph (variolation). In 1798/99 he vaccinated 234 children in the provost's office . When his family urged him to take a vacant position as Bergrat in Württemberg, he received through Reventlow's mediation the order to support the professor of physics in Kiel, Johann Friedrich Ackermann , to take over the lectures on physics, with a salary of 300 Reichstalers and the Entry as full professor in the Philosophical Faculty.

At the old age of the professor of chemistry in Kiel, Kerstens, he was offered the prospect of receiving the professorship of chemistry after his death. Since he did not feel up to the task, he went to Paris from spring to late autumn 1801 to gain practical experience. Here he supported Georges Cuvier . He set up a laboratory with a few young French people. Here he got to know Volta personally and was invited to the meetings of the commission charged with examining Volta's discoveries.

On his return, because Kerstens had died in the meantime, he took over the professorship for chemistry and at the same time entered the medical faculty, to which chemistry was then assigned. Now, from 1802, Pfaff advocated smallpox vaccination with cowpox lymph (vaccination). In 1802 he commissioned the doctor Dr. Friedrich Adolph von Heinze with a report on the practice of vaccination against cowpox in the provost's office. From this report Pfaff learned of the discovery of the teacher Peter Plett , which he published immediately and reported to the German-Danish government in Copenhagen. Pfaff later regretted that Weber knew Plett's discovery, but was reluctant to use the new protective agent. Between 1809 and 1818 he traveled several times to southern Germany and associated with Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers , Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring , Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler , Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Ludwig Wilhelm Gilbert . On a later trip to the Rhine and Switzerland he met Marc-Auguste Pictet and Charles-Gaspard de la Rive . In 1829 he was in Paris and London, where he found inspiration from Michael Faraday , William Thomas Brande , William Prout and Hollander. After he had taken a lively part in the meeting of German naturalists in Hamburg in 1830, his weak eyes increased sharply. As early as 1806 he noticed a decrease in his eyesight and therefore turned down appointments to other universities. In 1845 he had to give up his teaching post.

Reorganization of the pharmacy

When in 1804 a medical college was established for the duchies to thoroughly organize the pharmacy , he joined as a member and secretary, and in 1828 became its director. On behalf of the Medical College, he published the pharmacopoeia for the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein in 1831.

Honors

Rector of the University of Kiel (1816/17 and 1828/29)
Corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (1812)
External member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1820)
Danebrog Order (1815)
Honorary Citizen of Kiel (1843)
After Pfaff named Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius 1826, the plant genus Pfaffia from the amaranthaceae (Amaranthaceae).

Fonts (selection)

Dissertatio inauguralis medica De electricitate sic dicta animali , Stuttgart: Universitäts-Verlag 1793.
On animal electricity and irritability: a contribution to the latest discoveries about these objects , Leipzig: Crusius 1795 ( digitized version ).
Outline of a general physiology and pathology of the human body, Vol. 1 , Copenhagen: Brummer 1801.
Revision of the principles of the Brownian system with special reference to the excitation theory , Copenhagen 1804.
About the mineral springs near Bramstedt and about some other mineral springs in Holstein, together with some remarks about mineral springs in general, Altona: Hammerich 1810.
System of materia medica according to chemical principles . F. Chr. W. Vogel, Leipzig, Volume I (1808) (digitized version) ; Volume II (1811) (digitized version) ; Volume III (1814) (digitized version) ; Volume IV (1815) (digitized version) ; Volume V (1817) (digitized version) ; Volume VI (1821) (digitized version) ; Volume VII (1824) (digitized version)
About Newton's color theory, Herr von Goethe's theory of colors and the chemical contrast of colors , Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel, Leipzig: Vogel 1813, digitized
About and against animal magnetism and the now predominant tendency in the field, Hamburg: Perthes & Besser, 1817.
The electro-magnetism, a historical-critical presentation of the previous discoveries in the same area, together with peculiar experiments by CH Pfaff , Perthes and Besser, Hamburg 1824, digitized
Pharmacopoea Slesvico-Holsatica , Kiel: University Library 1831, digitized .
together with Christian Rudolph Wilhelm Wiedemann and Georg Heinrich Ritter: Taxes on pharmacists' goods for the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein , Kiel: Royal School Book Printing Office 1832.
Revision of the theory of galvano-voltaism: with special consideration for Faraday's, de la Rive's, Bequerels, Karstens and others, the latest work on this subject , Altona: Hammerich 1837.
Collaboration on Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler 's physical dictionary (EB Schurckert, 1828–1840).

editor

with Paul Scheel and Carl Asmund Rudolphi : Nordic Archive for Natural and Medical Science and Surgery (1799–1805)

translation

Individual evidence

↑ Alexander von Humboldt: Experiments on the irritated muscle and nerve fiber . tape I . Decker / Rottmann, Potsdam / Berlin 1797, p. 8 ( digitized version in the Google book search).
↑ Rector's speeches (HKM)
^ Members of the previous academies. Christoph Heinrich Pfaff. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on May 22, 2015 .
↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

literature

Memoirs of Christoph Heinrich Pfaff . Schwers, Kiel 1854 ( digitized version ).
Franz Hermann Hegewisch: Memorandum to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Doctor of Medicine Christoph Heinrich Pfaff, Professor of Medicine at the Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, ... on October 5th, 1843, Kiel: Mohr 1843.
Gustav Karsten : Christoph Heinrich Pfaff . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, pp. 582-587.

Web links

Literature by and about Christoph Heinrich Pfaff in the catalog of the German National Library
Christa Geckeler: Christoph Heinrich Pfaff. In: Honorary Citizens of Kiel. State capital Kiel, city archives, town hall, accessed on September 10, 2018 .

personal data
SURNAME	Pfaff, Christoph Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Pfaff, Christophorus Henricus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German university professor for physics and chemistry; Rector of the University of Kiel
DATE OF BIRTH	March 2, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH	Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH	April 23, 1852
Place of death	Kiel

[1] Alexander von Humboldt: Experiments on the irritated muscle and nerve fiber . tape I . Decker / Rottmann, Potsdam / Berlin 1797, p. 8 ( digitized version in the Google book search).

[2] Rector's speeches (HKM)

[3] Members of the previous academies. Christoph Heinrich Pfaff. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on May 22, 2015 .

[Burkhardt_2018-4] Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .