Georg Prochaska

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Georg Prochaska (1749-1820)

Georg Prochaska (Czech Jiří Procházka ); (Born April 10, 1749 in Lispitz - today Blížkovice , Moravia ; † July 17, 1820 in Vienna ) was a Czech - Austrian doctor and medical scientist .

Life

Memorial plaque at the Jesuit College in Znojmo

Prochaska attended the Jesuit grammar school in Znojmo . After the death of his father, he financed attending this school through tutoring. Supported by a related canon in Olomouc , he studied philosophy there from 1765 to 1767. After earning his philosophical doctorate in 1767 at the age of 18, he first devoted himself to studying medicine in Prague and later in Vienna. Seriously ill , he came to the clinic of Anton de Haen (1704–76) in Vienna . This supported him after his recovery and enabled him to study medicine from 1770. After de Haen's death, Prochaska found a new mentor in the anatomist and oculist Joseph Barth (1745-1818). In 1776 Prochaska was awarded a Dr. med. doctorate (Dissertatio inauguralis medica "de urino"), in 1778 he was appointed professor of anatomy and ophthalmology at the University of Prague , where he also taught "higher anatomy" and physiology from 1786 . After Barth's resignation in 1791 he took over his chair for anatomy and ophthalmology, which he held until his retirement in 1819.

Services

plant

As a student, Prochaska began his own anatomical and physiological investigations. In 1778 he published his first work Controversae quaestiones physiologicae, quae vires cordis et motum sanguinis per casa animalia concernunt . In this work on the heart and the movement of blood he was able to show that the speed of blood flow decreases when blood passes from a thicker to a thinner artery. The famous anatomist Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–99) attacked him violently, but without justification.

In 1781 he took the largely rejected view that the deformity of the fetus is not a given, but develops in the course of pregnancy due to incorrect differentiation of the organs concerned, starting from an originally uniform substrate tissue.

Prochaska's main work is Commentatio de functionibus systemis nervosi . It appeared in 1784. In it he tried to explain the function of the nerves on the basis of observations, as far as possible while avoiding preconceived assumptions. He explained the muscle reflex with a nerve force (vis nervosa) and a common sensory center (sensorium commune) as the coordination organ. This is not only to be found in the brain, but also in the spinal cord. This is reminiscent of the later teachings of the autonomic and psychic reflex arc. The nerve force should always be latent and act proportionally to the strength of an external or internal stimulus. This model approximates today's ideas of the nerve impulse .

The “Sensorium commune” suggests secondary and tertiary sensory centers, see today's theory of perception , illustrated using the example of sight . There are also parallels to the Aristotelian idea of ​​the κοινη αἶσθησις koine aistesis . Such philosophical and sensualistic approaches and corresponding traditions of antiquity characterize the enlightenment physiologists of the nervous system, to which Prochaska as well as Johann August Unzer belong.

Prochaska assumed that there are two separate nervous systems: one should conduct sensory stimuli from the outside in to the sensorium commune, the other in the opposite direction; the latter he regarded as the reflex system that was independent of physical laws and of the will. Will and intellect were independent of the “sensorium commune” and also localized elsewhere. This suggests the idea that different parts of the brain or the nervous system have different tasks, i. H. the question of localization in neurology arises . With his hypotheses, Prochaska u. a. Marshall Hall (1790–1857), François Achille Longet (1811–71) and Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger (1829–1910). After 1810 he turned to romantic natural philosophy.

Prochaska found the bundles, the transverse stripes and the sarcolemma in the muscles and gave the first precise description of the olive as part of the medulla oblongata . He also worked as an ophthalmologist and is said to have performed over 3000 cataract operations according to contemporary reports.

Medical historical appreciation

Prochaska is shaped by the principles of vitalism and is a follower of the teachings of Georg Ernst Stahl regarding the influence of psychological factors. He shares the fate with other eminent scholars such as Johann August Unzer that their achievements received little recognition during their lives and were only recognized and valued for their importance afterwards.

Works

Book edition with contributions by Georg Prochaska, Johann August Unzer (1727–1799), and Thomas Laycock (1812–1876)
  • Controversae quaestiones physiologicae, quae vires cordis et motum sanguinis per casa animalia concernunt . (1778)
  • Commentatio de functionibus systemis nervosi . (1784)
  • Dissertatio inauguralis medica “de urino” (1776) Dissertation thesis
  • De carne musculari tractatus and De structura nervorum (1776) habilitation theses
  • Quaestiones physiologicae, quae vires cordis et motum sanguinis per vasa animalia concernunt (from 1778)
  • Adnotationes academicae continentes: observationes et descriptiones anatomicae (III Fasc. 1780–84)
  • Institutiones physiologiae humanae (II Fasc. The second volume appeared in 1805, the entire work in German translation under the title Theorems from the Physiology of Man 2 Vols. 1797, in the 2nd and 3rd editions 1802 and 1810), which Prochaska completely revised 1820 published under the title Physiologie. Or: doctrine of the nature of man. free e-book (Google)
  • Attempt at an empirical presentation of the polar law of nature and its application to the activities of organic and inorganic bodies, with a look back at the animal organism (1815)
  • The principles of physiology (1851) paperback with contributions by Georg Prochaska, Johann August Unzer a . a., cf. the illustration of the book cover

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Helmut Wyklicky :  Prochaska (Procházka), Georg (Jirí). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 736 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ↑ a b August Hirsch :  Prochaska, Georg . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, pp. 622-624.
  3. ^ Wilhelm Griesinger : About psychological reflexions . In: Treatises. Vol. I, p. 4
  4. ↑ Karl Jaspers : General Psychopathology . Springer, Berlin 9 1973, ISBN 3-540-03340-8 ; on the district “psychic reflex arc”: pp. 130 ff., 133 ff., 150 f., 156
  5. ↑ Aristotle : De anima III, 2 p. 425 to 15
  6. ↑ a b c Klaus Dörner : Citizens and Irre . On the social history and sociology of science in psychiatry. (1969) Fischer Taschenbuch, Bücher des Wissens, Frankfurt / M 1975, ISBN 3-436-02101-6 ; (a) on taxation “nerve theories”: pp. 202 f., 207, 215; (b) Re. “Naturphilosophie” p. 203; (c) Re. "Medical historical appreciation": p. 202 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Prochaska, Georg
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Procházka, Jiří
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech-Austrian medic
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Lispitz
DATE OF DEATH July 17, 1820
Place of death Vienna