Ludwig Thudichum

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Ludwig Thudichum

(Johann) Ludwig (Wilhelm) Thudichum (born August 27, 1829 in Büdingen , † September 7, 1901 in London ) was a German doctor, biochemist and physiologist. He is considered a pioneer in brain chemistry.

family

Thudichum was the offspring of a Swabian Dudichumb family from Marbach am Neckar , who were distantly related to the family of the poet Friedrich Schiller . He was the son of the Sophocles translator and grammar school director Georg Thudichum of the Wolfgang Ernst grammar school in Büdingen and his wife Friederike geb. Baist (1805-1879). In 1854 Thudichum married Charlotte Dupré, sister of the chemist August Dupré, in London . The connection resulted in two sons and six daughters. His brother Friedrich von Thudichum was one of the great legal scholars of the 19th century.

Charlotte born Dupré
* June 30, 1828 in Soden near Salmünster; † January 6, 1914 in London
⚭ May 15, 1854 in London
Children:
1 Jeanette Friederike * May 16, 1855 in London † May 28, 1946 in Icklesham
2 Charlotte Louise * June 8, 1856 in London † June 25, 1856 in London
3 Marie Louise * November 1, 1857 in London † September 5, 1947 in Icklesham
4th Georg Dupré * February 27, 1859 in London † December 19, 1942 in London
5 Louis Mader * July 9, 1860 in London † March 3, 1937 in Hastings
6th Charlotte Ottilie * January 22, 1862 in London † September 30, 1942 in Icklesham
7th Henriette * September 12, 1865 in London † August 8, 1946 in Hastings
8th Therese Viktoria * July 10, 1868 in London † July 15, 1947 in Icklesham

education and profession

Thudichum probably attended his father's high school and began studying medicine at the Hessian Ludwig University in 1847 . Justus von Liebig and Theodor Bischoff were among his teachers . In 1848 he became a member of the Corps Hassia Gießen . In 1850 he spent a year at the University of Heidelberg, where he dealt with spectrum analysis with Robert Bunsen and studied anatomy and pathology with Jacob Henle . In 1851 he returned to Giessen and was promoted to Dr. med. PhD. After an unsuccessful application for a position as a pathologist in Giessen - he had been accused of being a sympathizer of the revolution of 1848 - Thudichum emigrated to London in 1853 . There he worked from 1855 to 1863 as a lecturer at the private St. George School of Medicine. From 1856 to 1858 he worked as a doctor at St. Pancras Dispensary and from 1865 served as lecturer and first director of the newly created laboratory for chemistry and pathology at St. Thomas Hospital in London. In 1871 he gave up this position and practiced as a doctor.

Science and medicine

In 1858, A Treatise on the pathology of urine appeared , summarizing 50 years of research and describing the iron chloride test for creatinine . In 1859 he proposed a two-phase operation for the treatment of gallstones ( cholecystectomy ) for the first time , which was clinically tested in the USA and Switzerland in 1878. A treatise on gallstones (1863) contains historical, chemical and microscopic research findings, a classification of bile pigments and observations on the formation of gallstones.

In 1867 he published work on fluorescence , an anticipation of photodynamic therapy , and for the first time produced the iron-free blood pigment hematoporphyrin . In 1869, Thudichum isolated and characterized the pigments known as carotenoids . Other areas of work included hygiene , public health, food chemistry and infectious diseases .

In 1874 Thudichum published his first studies on the chemistry of the brain. He characterized about 140 substances in the ox brain, including the phosphorus-containing cephalins and lecithins in myelin , as well as the sugar-containing cerebrosides based on the newly discovered lipid sphingosine . He also suspected that amyloid plaques can form in brain tissue , and provided an early indication of the pathology of Alzheimer's disease . In 1884 the monograph A treatise on the chemical constitution of the brain (dt. 1901) was published, which today is regarded as a basis for neurochemistry and a classic of medicine. In 1877 the biochemist Arthur Gamgee (1841–1909) attacked Thudichum's work anonymously for reasons that are no longer technically comprehensible today. The German colleagues Felix Hoppe-Seyler and Richard Maly joined this unfounded negative campaign. As a result, important specialist journals no longer printed any works by Thudichum. Although the results of Thudichum's research appeared in government reports and " blue books " (collection of politically relevant documents), they were "effectively buried" by his competitors through "garbled rendering or willful misinterpretation". In a "brave attempt" Thudichum founded his own biomedical journal, the Annals of Chemical Medicine , which failed after only two editions (1879 & 1881), mainly because the content came almost exclusively from Thudichum's own research and thus his European critic Hoppe -Seyler, Städeler and Maly invited "poisonous replies".

From 1878 he worked as a leading otolaryngologist , developing electrocoagulation of nasal polyps and inventing a special nasal speculum .

Memberships

Prizes and awards

  • Hastings Gold Medal from the British Medical Association , 1864
  • Silver Medal of the Society of Arts, 1866
  • Dr. hc , Giessen 1901
  • Brass plaque at the house where he was born in Büdingen: “In this house, Ludwig J. Wilhelm Thudichum, the pioneer of brain chemistry, was born on August 27, 1829. The Society for Physiological Chemistry on the occasion of the 16th Mosbach Colloquium 'About Lipoids ' ” .

Works

literature

  • David L. Drabkin: Thudichum. Chemist of the Brain (With an Annotated Bibliography of JLW Thudichum) . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia PA 1958.
  • Theodore L. Sourkes: How Thudichum came to study the brain . In: Journal of the History of Neuroscience , 2, 1993, pp. 107-119.
  • Volkmar Stein, Sven Teschke, Peter Zinnkann: Exhibition catalog: Georg Thudichum and his important sons . Ed .: Magistrate of the City of Büdingen - City Archives. 1st edition. Büdingen November 27, 2008, p. 52 .
  • Eberhard J. Wormer:  Thudichum, Johann Ludwig Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-428-11207-5 , pp. 207 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 97/612
  2. ^ Peter Dupré: Thudichum and Dupré - brothers in law . In: J Royal Soc Med 86 (1993) 417
  3. ↑ J. Ludwig W. Thudichum: The chemical constitution of the human and animal brains published by Franz Pietzker Verlag, Tübingen, 1901, as a PDF document in the Internet Archive, accessed on May 1, 2020
  4. ^ Ernst Lindner: Ludwig Johann Wilhelm Thudichum, the "biochemist of the brain" .
  5. ↑ Caoimhghin S. Breathnach: Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum 1829-1901, bane of the Protagonisers . In: History of Psychiatry 12 (2001) 283-296
  6. ^ Henry McIlwain: Thudichum and the medical Chemistry of the 1860s to 1880s . In: Proc Royal Soc Med 51 (1957) 127-132
  7. ↑ Annals of Chemical Medicine Vol. 1 (1879) in the Internet Archive, accessed May 1, 2020
  8. ↑ Barry Blackwell: Thudichum Father of Neurochemistry, a Biography
personal data
SURNAME Thudichum, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thudichum, Johann Ludwig Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of brain chemistry
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Büdingen
DATE OF DEATH September 7, 1901
Place of death London