Joseph von Scherer

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Joseph von Scherer shortly before his unexpected death

Johann Joseph von Scherer , ennobled in 1866 (born March 14, 1814 in Aschaffenburg , † February 17, 1869 in Würzburg ), was a German physician and chemist and co-founder of the medical specialty clinical chemistry .

Live and act

Liebig's laboratory 1841
[Johannes] Rudolf Wagner: Nekrolog. In: Reports of the German Chemical Society. Volume 2, 1869, pp. 108-110.
Scherer among his colleagues in Würzburg in 1850. Standing from left: Rudolf Virchow , Albert von Koelliker ; seated from left: Joseph von Scherer, Franz Kiwisch von Rotterau , Franz von Rinecker

Joseph Scherer studied medicine and natural sciences, especially chemistry, geology and mineralogy, at the University of Würzburg. After he had received his license to practice medicine and received his doctorate in medicine and surgery on June 28, 1836, he first practiced for two years in the Lower Franconian seaside resort of Wipfeld as a spa doctor, where he met the naturalist Ernst von Bibra . This motivated him to devote himself more intensively to the natural sciences, and so he studied inorganic chemistry in Munich in 1839 with Heinrich August Vogel (1778–1867), Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs and Franz von Kobell . To learn organic chemistry, he went to Justus Liebig in Giessen between Easter 1840 and 1841, made possible by a state travel grant . Here he dealt with animal chemistry and studies of blood and protein bodies. His doctoral thesis consisted of experiments on the effects of certain poisons on different classes of animals .

He then became a natural science teacher at the royal trade school in Würzburg. Later in 1842 he received an extraordinary professorship at the Medical Faculty, but (after two applications from 1845) a full professorship for organic chemistry at the Medical Faculty, which was then located in the Würzburg Juliusspital , in June 1847 . He had previously turned down a call to Dorpat . When the other professors for general, inorganic and pharmaceutical chemistry passed away, he also took over their subjects and the new subject of hygiene at the newly created chemical institute. Joseph von Scherer was most recently director of the Medical Institute for Chemistry and Hygiene at Maxstrasse 4, which he established and founded in 1867. Adolph Strecker , whom von Scherer knew from studying together with his teacher and "fatherly friend" Liebig, was appointed as his successor .

In 1843 he published his book Chemical and Microscopic Examinations for Pathology employed at the clinics of the Julius Hospital in Würzburg , which he published in Heidelberg , where he first used the term “clinical-chemical” in today's sense with the name of his “clinical chemical laboratory” in Würzburg coined. In 1843 and 1851 he demonstrated the occurrence of lactic acid in human blood under pathological conditions, such as hemorrhagic or septic shock. He discovered two basic natural substances and published their properties in 1850: the purine derivative hypoxanthine and the “muscle sugar” inositol . In 1859 he published the first volume of his unfinished textbook on chemistry with special consideration of medical and pharmaceutical needs . With Gottfried Eisenmann and Rudolf Virchow , he published the annual reports from 1853 on the achievements and progress in all of medicine .

Johann Joseph von Scherer was married to Franziska Klinger, the daughter of a Würzburg court doctor, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. His eldest son from his first marriage to Rosina Schlereth, Rudolph, died on July 6, 1959. Joseph von Scherer died at the age of 54 of a "breast ailment".

Honors

In 1858 he became a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , in 1866 the Bavarian King awarded him the title of nobility and the Knight's Cross on the basis of his research on the Bad Kissingen sources.

Literature and Sources

  • Johannes Büttner:  Scherer, Johann Jakob Joseph von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 691 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Johannes Büttner: Johann Joseph von Scherer (1814–1869). A contribution to the early history of clinical chemistry. In: Journal of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Biochemistry , Volume 16, 1978, pp. 478-483.
  • Richard Anschütz:  Scherer, Johann Joseph v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 31, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1890, p. 115 f.
  • Christina Renata Grund: Johann Joseph von Scherer's letters to Justus von Liebig. Scope of the corpus and content-related aspects. In: Würzburger medical history reports , Volume 11 1993, pp. 101-106.
  • Klaus Koschel, Gerhard Sauer: On the history of the chemical institute of the University of Würzburg. Self-published by the university, Würzburg 1968, p. 19 ff.
  • Memorial speech for Johann Joseph von Scherer. In: Negotiations of the Physical-Medical Society of Würzburg , New Series 2, 1872, pp. XXXIV – XXXIX.
  • Thomas Sauer, Ralf Vollmuth : Letters from members of the Würzburg medical faculty in the estate of Anton Ruland. Sources on the history of medicine in the 19th century with short biographies. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 9, 1991, pp. 135-206; here: pp. 181–183.

Web links

References and comments

  1. Grund (1993), p. 101.
  2. Zeno.org: Animal Chemistry .
  3. Grund (1993), p. 103.
  4. Heinz PR Seeliger : 100 years chair for hygiene in Würzburg. In: Würzburger medical historical reports 6, 1988, pp. 129-139; here: p. 130 f.
  5. EJO Kompanje, TC Jansen, B. van der Hoven, and J. Bakker: The first demonstration of lactic acid in human blood in shock by Johann Joseph Scherer (1814-1869) in January 1843 ; In: Intensive Care Med. 2007 November; 33 (11): 1967-1971. PMC 2040486 (free full text) doi: 10.1007 / s00134-007-0788-7 .
  6. Josef Scherer: About a body that occurs in the animal organism and is related to xanthicoxide . In: Friedrich Wöhler, Justus Liebig (Ed.): Annals of Chemistry and Pharmacy . tape 73 , no. 3 . Christian Friedrich Winter, 1850, ISSN  0075-4617 , p. 328-334 , doi : 10.1002 / jlac.18500730304 ( hathitrust.org ).
  7. Josef Scherer: About a new type of sugar obtained from muscle meat . In: Friedrich Wöhler, Justus Liebig (Ed.): Annals of Chemistry and Pharmacy . tape 73 , no. 3 . Christian Friedrich Winter, 1850, ISSN  0075-4617 , p. 322-328 , doi : 10.1002 / jlac.18500730303 ( hathitrust.org ).
  8. ^ University of Würzburg: Pathological Institute: Johann Scherer .
  9. Grund (1993), p. 103.
  10. The letters were written from January 1846 to November 1868.