Friedl Weber
Friedl Weber (born May 22, 1886 in Salzburg , † October 28, 1960 ) was an Austrian plant physiologist and proven protoplasm researcher .
Scientific career
Weber graduated from the state high school in his native Salzburg. From 1905 he studied biology at the University of Vienna . His first teacher was the plant physiologist Julius Wiesner . Under his successor Hans Molisch he received his doctorate in 1910. Weber initially continued to work at the Vienna Institute of Plant Physiology. When Karl Linsbauer was appointed to the German-speaking University of Czernowitz in 1911 , Weber went there with him as an assistant. He followed him in the same position in the same year at the Technical University of Graz .
Weber completed his habilitation in Graz in 1918 for anatomy and physiology of plants and received the title of professor in 1923, became associate professor in 1929 and, after Linsbauer's death in autumn 1934, head of the institute for anatomy and physiology of plants. In 1936 he turned down a call to the University of Vienna and took over the professorship in Graz, which he led on his retirement on September 30, 1957.
Scientific work
His first scientific work followed on from Hans Molisch's attempts to forge early on woody plants. He added the injury and acetylene methods to Molisch's hot bath method. In later work he dealt intensively with Georg Albrecht Klebs' criticism of this method theoretically. This work brought new processes and theoretical discussions about the phenomenon. In addition, Weber's writings from those years reveal an enormous variety of interesting problems and phenomena: You can find a well-founded summary of the theory of meristem formation , thoughts about the aging and death of plants, about the periodicity in plants, about hormones in the plant kingdom, about Radiation Biology and Electrophysiology.
Soon, however, Weber turned to the still young protoplasmatic and colloid chemistry. This was followed by a long series of publications on the viscosity, the stringing, and the adhesive strength of the plant protoplasm. Weber devised new methods for the physicochemical characterization of the plant's plasma state, the plasmolysis form and the plasmolysis time method. Finally, he was able to precisely determine the viscosity of the plasma on the basis of Brownian molecular motion. This method was further developed by Weber's student Josef Pekarek . While dealing with these protoplasmic questions, Weber discovered that it was not just the plasmas of different tissues that differed from one another. The protoplasms of morphologically similar cells can also be very different. On the basis of this observation, Weber founded the "protoplasmic anatomy", which, in contrast to the classic "cell wall anatomy", is based on the comparative observation of the living cell contents. The scientific tradition of plant anatomy founded by Hubert Leitgeb and Gottlieb Haberlandt and continued by Karl Linsbauer thus found an original and fruitful continuation.
During the Second World War , other research priorities came to the fore. Weber examined the occurrence of vitamins (vitamin C and vitamin B) in plants. Other questions were related to colchicine . All of these scientific questions brought Weber back to the living protoplasm and its changes in state.
After the war, Weber became familiar with plant virology. Based on literature studies and light microscopic examinations, he came to the conviction that the protein spindles of cacti described by Hans Molisch and since then regarded as reserve bodies are in reality virus inclusions. This view of things was later confirmed by electron microscopy at the institute of the botanist Siegfried Strugger in Münster. This case brilliantly confirmed Weber's reliable scientific intuition based on profound knowledge of the literature and precise cytological examinations.
Editorial work
In addition to his work as a researcher, Weber also emerged as the editor of scientific series. After turning to protoplasmatics, he recognized the need for a central publication organ for this new area of research. Together with the zoologist and cell physiologist Josef Spek , who was doing research in Heidelberg at the time , he founded the journal "Protoplasma" in 1926, which quickly gained international importance. Weber ran this magazine until his last days. Together with Felix Widder , he founded the botanical journal “Phyton, Annales rei botanicae” after the Second World War in order to counteract the lack of publication space that existed at the time. In addition, Weber acted as editor of the 14-volume manual “Protoplasmalogia”.
Honors and appreciation
Weber was first a corresponding and then a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He was a corresponding member of the Turin Academy and an honorary member of the Vienna Zoological and Botanical Society. As much as he was pleased with such recognitions, he considered the individual (including himself) to be unimportant in the research process. The community research process is essential. Nevertheless, Weber's basic research on protoplasmatics remains essentially and inextricably linked to his name.
literature
- Karl Höfler: Friedl Weber. In: Protoplasma, Volume 55, March 1962
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ So the description of Weber by Otto Härtel (Institute for Anatomy and Physiology of Plants at the University of Graz) in the commemorative hour on December 12, 1960 at the Natural Science Association Austria
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weber, Friedl |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Weber, Friedrich |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian plant physiologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 22, 1886 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Salzburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 28, 1960 |