Gustav Embden

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House 99 Kennedyallee

Gustav Georg Embden (born November 10, 1874 in Hamburg , † July 25, 1933 in Nassau ) was a German physician (physiologist or biochemist). He was a son of the lawyer George Heinrich Embden . He was a great-nephew of Heinrich Heine.

Embden studied in Freiburg, Strasbourg, Munich, Berlin and Zurich; In 1899 he was promoted to Dr. med. PhD. After working as an assistant in Strasbourg, in 1904 he became director of the chemical laboratory at the municipal hospital in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen . After establishing himself professionally as a civil servant department head of the Frankfurt City Clinics, Gustav Embden married one of his assistants, Johanna Fellner, the granddaughter of the Frankfurt Senator Karl Fellner, in 1911. They had a son. From his laboratory the Institute for Vegetative Physiology of the newly founded University of Frankfurt emerged in 1914 , where Embden has taught as a professor ever since. In 1925/26 Gustav Embden was rector of the Goethe University. In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Stumbling stones in front of Kennedyallee 99 for Gustav Georg Embden

He mainly worked on carbohydrates and muscle metabolism. His work became fundamental to the description of diabetes mellitus .

In 1929 the mechanism of glycolysis (Embden-Meyerhof-Parnas-Weg) was cleared up by Gustav Embden, Otto Meyerhof and Jakub Parnas (EMP-Weg).

Although Embden never received a Nobel Prize, he was nominated twelve times for a Nobel Prize between 1923 and 1933.

Together with Gustav von Bergmann , Albrecht Bethe and Alexander Ellinger, he founded the manual of normal and pathological physiology , or Bethe-Embden for short, published by Springer-Verlag from 1926 to 1932 .

In April 1933 Gustav Embden was publicly humiliated: students dragged him out of his institute and led him through the city with the sign “I am a Jew”. In June 1933 Embden was admitted to the nerve sanatorium in Nassau an der Lahn. There he died on July 25, 1933, according to the death certificate, the cause of death was "depression".

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Goethe University , a stumbling block was laid for him on October 17, 2014 at Kennedyallee 99.

In honor of Gustav Embden, buildings 74 and 75 of the University Clinics in Frankfurt am Main are called "Gustav Embden Center for Biochemistry".

literature

  • Udo Benzenhöfer : Gustav Embden - an important physiologist at the University of Frankfurt am Main. In the S. (Ed.): Ehrlich, Edinger, Goldstein et al .: Frankfurt University Doctors to Remember. Klemm + Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2012, pp. 66–78.
  • Udo Benzenhöfer: The University Medicine in Frankfurt am Main from 1914 to 2014. Kontur, Münster 2014, pp. 50–52.
  • Renate Heuer , Siegbert Wolf (ed.): The Jews of the Frankfurt University. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1997, p. 86 f.
  • Emil Lehnartz :  Embden, Gustav Georg. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 473 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lothar Jaenicke: A short history of the Embden-Meyerhof cycle: Gustav Embden and the vegetative physiology. In: Biospektrum 6th year (pp. 129–132). 2000, accessed September 13, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Lothar Jaenicke: A short history of the Embden-Meyerhof cycle: Gustav Embden and the vegetative physiology. In: Biospektrum 6th year (pp. 129–132). 2000, accessed September 13, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Gustav Embden - Biology. Retrieved September 13, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Lothar Jaenicke: A short history of the Embden-Meyerhof cycle: Gustav Embden and the vegetative physiology. In: Biospektrum 6th year (pp. 129–132). 2000, accessed September 13, 2018 .
  5. ↑ nobelprize.org: Nomination Database. September 13, 2018, accessed September 13, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Götze, Der Springer-Verlag, Volume 2, 1994, p. 51
  7. ↑ Embden, Gustav . In: Stolpersteine on the website of the city of Frankfurt am Main
personal data
SURNAME Embden, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Embden, Gustav Georg (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH July 25, 1933
Place of death Nassau