Ernst Laqueur

Ernst Laqueur (1935)

Ernst Laqueur (born August 7, 1880 in Obernigk , † August 19, 1947 in Oberwald in the Swiss canton of Valais ) was a doctor and pharmacologist .

Life

Father Siegfried Laqueur was a businessman. Ernst Laqueur grew up with two older brothers in Obernigk in Lower Silesia near Breslau. In 1898 he passed the matriculation examination at the Maria Magdalenen grammar school in Breslau . He then began his chemistry and medicine studies there , but then moved to Heidelberg University . After he had passed the medical state examination in 1904, Laqueur first worked at the Physiological Institute of the University of Breslau and then at the Physiological and Pharmacological Institute in Heidelberg . In 1905 he received his doctoral hat in Breslau , and in the same year he married Margarethe Löwenthal, a factory owner's daughter. Both were baptized Protestants in 1906 on the occasion of the birth of their first child (there were five in total) in the opinion that they would be able to bridge the divisions between Jews and Germans. Laqueur then went to Königsberg (then East Prussia ) for a year , where he worked at the University's Physiological Institute. There he also received his habilitation in physiology .

In the summer of 1907 he became assistant to Wilhelm Roux at the anatomical institute of the University of Halle ; and Julius Bernstein , the professor of physiology, was there with his teachers. In 1910 he was re-qualified at the University of Halle. His research focused on hormones and protein bodies. Laqueur's free work in his research and teaching was severely impaired in 1911 when Emil Abderhalden became his supervisor in Halle. During a heated argument with Abderhalden, Laqueur announced his immediate resignation.

In 1912 he went to the Dutch University of Groningen (Rijksuniversiteit) as an assistant to the physiologist Hartog Jacob Hamburger . The beginning of the First World War prompted Laqueur to return to Germany and volunteer for military service as a doctor . After serving in various regiments, he was assigned as a lecturer at the Army Gas School in 1916 . In 1917, Laqueur accepted the call from Ghent University . There he received a professorship for pharmacology and physiology. The Belgian city of Ghent was occupied by the Germans at that time, and the university was founded by the German-friendly Flemings (Vlaamsche Hogeschool). Laqueur was therefore released again after the end of the war.

In 1920 he received a professorship in pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam . Laqueur did not become a Dutch citizen until 1932 . In 1940 the Netherlands was occupied by German troops. As a result, Laqueur was dismissed as a university professor because of his Jewish descent. He was spared from stalking for a long time, but in 1944 he was about to be deported to a concentration camp . The end of the war saved his life. Two of his daughters also survived the Holocaust ; they were liberated by British troops in Bergen-Belsen in 1945 and by Soviet units on the journey with the ' lost train '. Ernst Laqueur died in 1947 at the age of 67 while on vacation in Switzerland.

power

After the end of the First World War, Laqueur published an extensive study on "war gas poisoning". Together with other researchers, he discovered the female hormone estrogen (1925/26), which was further isolated by the German researcher Adolf Butenandt in 1929 and its structure was determined. In 1935 Laqueur isolated what he called the sex hormone testosterone from bull testicles . Other findings from his hormone research are also valuable for science. Ernst Laqueur is one of the scientists who laid the foundations for modern endocrinology . It was also he who was one of the first university lecturers to promote and initiate cooperation between the university and industry. In 1923, Laqueur founded the pharmaceutical company Organon in the Netherlands together with Saal van Zwanenberg and Jacques van Oss . This enabled him to be the first in Europe to produce insulin for medical use. In 1940 he had to sell his Organon shares to German trustees. In 1940 Laqueur was awarded the Amory Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and in 1946 he received the Swedish Berzelius Medal.

Organon has been awarding the Ernst Laqueur Medal for outstanding, systematic clinical-scientific research in the field of physiology and pathology of human reproduction to a university professor based in Europe since 1975 .

In 1928 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Publications

• About casein as an acid and its differences compared to the paracasein modified by rennet , dissertation, Breslau 1905
• Development mechanics of animal organisms , 1915
• Significance of development mechanics for physiology , Jena 1918
• with R. Magnus: Kampfgasvergiftungen , 5 parts, magazine for experimental medicine 1920/21
• On the occurrence of female sex hormone (menformon) in the urine of men , Berlin 1927
• Evaluation of ovarian therapy , Leipzig 1932
• Formatieve therapy: een bijdrage tot de synthesis van bouw en functie , Amsterdam 1937
• Medische voorlichting bij gasoorlog , The Hague 1937
• De endocrine ziekten en hair orgaan- en hormoontherapie , Leiden / Amsterdam 1937
• Hormonology: physiologie en pharmacologie van de Hormonen , Noord-Hollandsche Uitgeversmaatschappij 1948

literature

• Review of 17 years research of the Pharmacotherapeutic laboratory of the university of Amsterdam, in honor of the 60th birthday of Ernst Laqueur , Amsterdam 1940
• Dossier Laqueur in German and Jewish Intellectual Emigré Collection in University at Albany (State University of New York).
• Holm-Dietmar Schwarz:  Laqueur, Ernst. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 633 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Saskia Goldschmidt, Die Glücksfabrik, Roman, from d. Dutch v. Andreas Ecke, Munich: dtv, 2016, 325 S. The author tells of the collaboration between her grandfather (maternal) Ernst Laqueur and the entrepreneur Saal van Zwanenberg on the world's first industrial production of insulin.

On the death of Ernst Laqueur:

• SE de Jongh, in Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 91 (1947)
• M. Tausk, in Het Hormoon 12 (1947)
• Ina E. Uyldert, in Amsterdamsche Studenten-Almanak voor het jaar 1948

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Renata Laqueur : Bergen-Belsen. Diary 1944/1945 , torch bearer, Hanover 1995. ISBN 3-7716-2308-1 [1]

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Laqueur in the catalog of the German National Library