Gustav von Piotrowski

Gustav (Gustaw) Ritter von Piotrowski, senior (born March 1, 1833 in Tarnów , Galicia , Austria-Hungary , † December 31, 1884 in Kraków ) was a Polish-Austrian physiologist .

Live and act

Gustav Piotrowski senior, son of a lawyer and landowner in Tarnów , attended school in Vienna and in his birthplace. After graduating from high school, he studied medicine in Vienna from 1851 to 1856. He then worked for a short time at the Physiological Institute of the University of Krakow , before receiving his doctorate from the physiologist Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Brücke in Vienna. med. received his doctorate. He then tried to improve his knowledge of chemistry and physics in order to subsequently become a physiologist himself. In 1857 he went to Göttingen and worked first with the chemist Friedrich Wöhler and later with the physicist Wilhelm Weber .

When he left the Georg-August University in Göttingen in 1858 , the fraternity of Hannovera made him an honorary member. Gustav Piotrowski then worked for six months with the chemist Robert Bunsen in Heidelberg before he was assistant to the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz for six months . After completing his habilitation in Cracow, he became an associate professor of physiology there in 1859 and a year later a full professor.

He was dean of the medical faculty six times; At times he also belonged to the mathematics and natural science faculty. In the winter semester of 1873/74 he was rector of the Jagiellonian University . He was also a member of the state examination commission for doctors.

He was a member of the Society of Science and the Agricultural Society in Cracow and was appointed curator of the Agricultural High School in Czernichów near Cracow. Apart from some research in the field of experimental physics, his scientific activity extended to physiology, especially since he succeeded in setting up a new institute for physiology at the University of Krakow.

A protein body reaction he discovered was later named after him " Piotrowski reaction ". He published the results of his research partly in German, partly in Polish. In 1864 he brought out the first textbook on physiology in Polish. As a landowner in the Tarnów constituency, he was elected to the Sejm ( Galician Landtag ) in Lemberg for four years in 1870 . From 1870 to 1873 he was also an elected member of the Imperial Council in Vienna.

Publications (selection)

• About a new reaction to protein bodies and their closer derivatives, session reports of the Academy of Sciences, Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Classe , Volume 24, pp. 335–337. Vienna, 1857. Harward University, Ernst Mayr Collection, digitized
• About the friction of drip liquids , (together with Hermann von Helmholtz), session reports of the Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 1860
• Fiziologia ludzka w zarysie (Overview of Human Physiology), Krakow, 1864

literature

• Berend Wilhelm Feddersen and AJ von Oettinger: JC Poggendorf's biographical-literary concise dictionary for the history of exact science, 3rd volume, Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1898, p. 1043
• August Hirsch: Biographical Lexicon of Outstanding Doctors of All Times and Nations, 2nd edition, 4th volume, Berlin and Vienna, Urban & Schwarzenberg, p. 612
• Polski Bownik Biograficzny, Volume 26, Wrocław, 1981, p. 469 f.
• SM Brzozowski:  Piotrowski Gustaw d. Ä .. In: Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 8, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2 , p. 87.
• Henning Tegtmeyer : Directory of members of the fraternity of Hannovera Göttingen, 1848–1998 , Düsseldorf 1998
• Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Sub-Volume 4: M-Q. Winter, Heidelberg 2000, ISBN 3-8253-1118-X , pp. 327-328.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nowa Reforma 1885 No. 1, page 3, Kronika
2. ^ Charles William Hale: Domestic Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1915, p. 229