Hilda Fonovits
Hilda Fonovits (born May 21, 1893 in Vienna ; died July 1954 ) was an Austrian radium researcher .
After graduating from the State Realschule in Vienna's 9th district , she studied physics from 1914 to 1919 at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna . The topic of her dissertation was on achieving the saturation current for α-rays in a plate capacitor (33 pages, Alfred Hölder , Vienna 1919).
While she was working on her dissertation, she was given the opportunity to work at the Vienna Institute for Radium Research , founded in 1910, and in 1921 was the first woman to get a paid position. After her marriage, now Hilda Fonovits-Smereker, and the birth of her son in 1922, she retired from academic work and remained a housewife for ten years.
At the Lainzer Hospital of the City of Vienna (today's Hietzing Hospital in Vienna's 13th district ) , a special department for radiation therapy was set up in 1931 during the tenure of City Councilor Julius Tandler . This physical laboratory developed into the most important radium station in Austria during this time.
From May 1932, Fonovits-Smereker was deputy head of the Radiumtechnische Versuchsanstalt, and in 1934 she was appointed head of it. She dealt scientifically with the problem of ionization by the ionizing radiation of radium, with dosimetry and with the biological effect of radium radiation.
Here she also met her second husband, Emil Maier, the head of radiation therapy. In 1941 they got married. Because of their close cooperation, they were also called the Austrian couple Curie . (Under the direction of Emil Maier, forced sterilization of women is said to have been carried out by sterilizing them with radium rays from 1940 onwards.)
In 1948 Hilda Fonovits-Maier applied for pragmatization , which was rejected. Your contract for work has been extended.
In 1954, two years after her husband, she died of the consequences of long exposure to radioactive materials. She was buried on July 28, 1954 in the presence of Leopold Schönbauer , surgeon, cancer researcher and rector of the University of Vienna 1953/1954 , and other prominent doctors in the Hietzingen cemetery .
In 2011, Fonovitsplatz was named in the 13th district of Vienna in front of the entrance to the ORF center Küniglberg .
literature
- Brigitte Bischof: Women in Physics - 100 Years of Women's Studies at the Physical Institutes of the University of Vienna , brochure for an exhibition, Vienna 1998, on the website of the University of Vienna
- Lore Brandl-Berger u. a .: Women in Hietzing , Vienna 2014 , documentation on the website of the Vienna city administration
- CV on the website of the University of Vienna
- Hilda Fonovits in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
- Information in the journal Strahlenschutz aktuell , Vienna, issue 2/2011, p. 13 f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Working with radium brought them death , in: Tageszeitung Arbeiter-Zeitung , Vienna, No. 174, July 30, 1954, p. 3
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fonovits, Hilda |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Fonovits-Smereker, Hilda; Fonovits-Maier, Hilda |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian radium researcher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 21, 1893 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 1954 |