Fritz Pregl

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Fritz Pregl

Fritz Pregl (born September 3, 1869 in Laibach , Austria-Hungary , today Slovenia , † December 13, 1930 in Graz ) was a Slovenian-Austrian physiologist and chemist . In 1923 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry .

Life

His birthplace in Laibach

Pregl was born as the son of a Slovenian-speaking father and a German-speaking mother in Laibach and studied medicine in Graz. He was a fellow student of Georg August Wagner . From 1913 he was a full professor at the Institute for Applied Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Graz , before that he was full professor for medicinal chemistry at the Medical University of Innsbruck for three years .

job

Pregl was of crucial importance for the further development of clinical chemical analysis. It was only through his investigations that it was basically possible to carry out exact analyzes even in the smallest sample quantities, as are usually available for clinical-chemical investigations. Pregl's work led to sustainable progress in metabolism, hormone and enzyme research.

He was particularly interested in physiological chemistry and the metabolic products that occur in the body. When examining the bile acid , which was obtained by extraction from bile, he received a few milligrams of the pure bile acid. In order to be able to set up the molecular formula, both the molecular mass had to be determined and an elemental analysis according to Liebig had to be carried out, which, however, required considerably larger quantities. After a long development of the known processes, Pregl was able to reduce the required amount to one fiftieth. This made it possible to isolate many substances with reasonable effort and determine their molecular formula.

Pregl's great influence was mainly due to the fact that he did not keep this method secret, but presented it at lectures and also set up a laboratory in Graz where chemists from all over the world could learn his method. It was only with the introduction of crystal structure analysis , mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy that elemental analysis took a back seat.

Honors

There are u. a. in Innsbruck and Klagenfurt streets named after him, where the institutes of the Medical University of Innsbruck and the municipal Westfriedhof are located. From 1931 to 2006, the Austrian Academy of Sciences awarded the Fritz Pregl Prize . In 1932 the Fritz-Pregl-Gasse in Vienna- Favoriten (10th district) was named after him.

In Graz he became an honorary citizen in 1929 and named the Fritz-Pregl-Weg after him in honor of his work as professor at the Institute for Applied Medicinal Chemistry.

Trivia

Fritz Pregl as an Austrian football pioneer

Fritz Pregl was also a football pioneer: a plaque at the State Sports Center Styria in Graz reminds us that on March 18, 1894, as a member of the Graz Academic-Technical Cycling Association, he actively participated in Austria's first football game.

literature

  • Wolfgang Göbel:  Pregl, Fritz. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , pp. 685 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • W. Oberhummer:  .pdf Pregl Fritz. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 254.
  • Alois Kernbauer, Anton Holasek: Fritz Pregl to Karl Berthold Hofmann. Letters from the years 1904 to 1913 (= publications from the archive of the University of Graz 25) Graz 1989.
  • Alois Kernbauer, Anton Holasek: Biochemistry in Graz. (= Publications from the archive of the University of Graz 35) Graz 1997.
  • Alois Kernbauer: Fritz Pregl. In: Helmuth Grössing, Gerhard Heindl (Hrsg.): Home of great sons ... Exemplary achievements of Austrian natural scientists, technicians and doctors. Frankfurt am Main - Berlin - Bern - New York - Paris - Vienna 1997, pp. 55-66.
  • Alois Kernbauer: Fritz Pregl - Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry 1923. Outdated 80 years later. In: Human - Magic - Science. Communications from the Austrian Society for the History of Science 22 (2002) pp. 141–144.

Web links

Commons : Fritz Pregl  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Football in Graz 1893 - 1895. In: Steirischer Fußballverband. Retrieved July 22, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Pregl, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1869
PLACE OF BIRTH Ljubljana
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1930
Place of death Graz