Max Haitinger

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Max Haitinger (born April 20, 1868 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; † February 19, 1946 there ) was an Austrian microscopist. He introduced staining with fluorescent dyes in order to stain specific structures in specimens in a targeted manner and thus to be able to observe them with a fluorescence microscope . In a collaboration with the Viennese microscope maker Karl Reichert , he made a significant contribution to improving his fluorescence microscope.

Life

Haitinger was born in Vienna as the son of a doctor who died in 1904. His older brother, the chemist and factory director Ludwig Camillo Haitinger (born October 23, 1860 in Vienna, † December 28, 1945 there) donated the Haitinger Prize in honor of his father.

Haitinger went to the Wasa-Gymnasium in Vienna up to the 6th grade, before his father sent him to the oenological and pomological school in Klosterneuburg . From 1885 he studied botany, physics, chemistry and other natural sciences at the University of Vienna . In 1887 he went to the University of Tübingen as an intern and then worked briefly in Libochowitz in what is now the Czech Republic as an agricultural volunteer on the estates of Count Herberstein . In October 1888 he went to the K. uk Army , where he started as a one-year volunteer career as an officer. Soon he went to the cadet school in Hainburg an der Donau to teach mathematics, physics and chemistry. He stayed there until 1919 when, as colonel and commandant of the school, he had to manage the school's closure.

He then lived on his brother's country estate in Weidling near Vienna. He received a pension and continued to devote himself to scientific studies that eventually led to fluorescence microscopy. He first carried out work on fluorescence as a guest at the Higher Education Institute for Eastern Viticulture and Horticulture in neighboring Klosterneuburg . In 1930, at the age of sixty, he moved to the 2nd Physics Institute at the University of Vienna, where he initially worked with Eduard Haschek in the field of color determination. A joint book appeared in 1936. There he continued his work on fluorescence and fluorescence microscopy.

In the last years of his life, Haitinger suffered from old age cataract , which severely impaired his eyesight. There was also poor general health. His friend and biographer Fritz Bräutigam, authorized signatory at Reichert, writes that during this time he gave Haitinger a weekly lecture on the latest work on fluorescence, whereupon the latter decided which should be included in the new edition of his "fluorescence microscope" and that Haitinger his daughter Maximiliane Müllner until shortly dictated the final results of his research before death. She and granddaughter Theodora Müllner supported him in his work until the end of his life. Max Haitinger was buried in the Weidlinger Friedhof .

plant

See also: Max Haitinger and fluorochroming in the article fluorescence microscopy

Conceptual creations

Since Haitinger developed the field of fluorescent marking anew, he introduced a number of terms to describe the phenomena observed. "Fluorochrome" as a name for a fluorescent dye is still used today, also in the English technical language (here as "fluorochrome"). Instead of “fluorochroming”, dyeing with fluorochromes is now called fluorescent marking. Naturally occurring fluorescence, ie autofluorescence or autofluorescence , he called “primary fluorescence”, whereas one caused by fluorochroming was called “secondary fluorescence”.

Fluorochromes

Illustration from Haitinger, 1938. “Root tip of Allium cepa , lengthways, with Coriphosphin O; ... 10 minutes exposure time, sharp differentiation between nucleus and protoplasm ”. At that time, the colored fluorescence could only be photographed in black and white.

While plants often show strong autofluorescence in different colors, animal and human tissues glow with little differentiation from violet to blue when exposed to UV light. Haitinger therefore produced fluorescent plant extracts and then tried out which plant or animal structures could be colored with them. He later also used fluorescent chemical compounds for this purpose.

Haitinger wasn't the first to take this approach. As early as 1913, Stanislaus von Prowazek published a work with fluorescent dyes, namely with eosin and neutral red . However, Haitinger's investigations were systematic and of an otherwise unequaled scope, so that he was able to publish numerous successful staining approaches with precise information on solvents, concentrations and exposure times. He also described approaches with two or three different fluorochromes, which were used for staining one after the other. He summarized his results in a book “Fluorescenzmikoskopie”, published in 1938, with a good hundred pages. A second edition appeared shortly after his death.

Haitinger himself initially applied his processes in microchemistry . The detection of aromatic and polycyclic hydrocarbons , porphyrin and rare earths was important. In 1937 Haitinger was awarded the Fritz Pregl Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences for his work .

In collaboration with the internist Hans Eppinger , in whose clinic he was able to work from 1942 to 1945, he applied fluorochroming to tissue. For example, after staining with berberine sulfate, connective tissue fluoresced blue, cell nuclei yellow-green and fat carmine-red.

Microscope construction

The first commercial fluorescence microscope was brought onto the market in 1911 by the Viennese microscope maker Karl Reichert and his colleague Oskar Heimstädt . In the following year, a device from Carl Zeiss followed , which soon assumed technological leadership. It wasn't until the 1930s that Reichert was able to catch up again thanks to the collaboration with Haitinger.

The new Reichert fluorescence microscope "Kam F" was available from 1931. It had an iron arc lamp as its light source, as it produced a high luminance for the time in a small space. However, they often had to be readjusted and produced unpleasant fumes. In the course of the 1930s, improved high-pressure mercury vapor lamps became available, for which Reichert brought the Lux UV and Lux ​​UW lighting devices onto the market, which were also developed with the help of Haitinger. He also replaced the previously used filters made of cuvettes with liquids to suppress the visible light in the excitation lighting with newly available glass filters, which made handling considerably easier. A first filter glass, colored with manganese compounds , allowed UV light to pass undisturbed, but only a long-wave red component of the visible light, which was initially blocked by copper sulfate solution. This liquid could also be replaced by blue glass filters in the early 1940s.

The first Reichert's fluorescence microscope had a dark field condenser so that the excitation light did not enter the objective and therefore no fluorescence could develop in the glass of the objective. In addition, residues of visible light from the light source in the microscopic image were avoided. Haitinger replaced the dark-field condenser with a simple bright-field condenser, which enabled much stronger illumination and thus also stronger fluorescence. To prevent UV light from reaching the microscopist's eye, he used UV blocking filters that were either built into the objective or placed on the eyepiece.

Fonts

  • Max Haitinger, Herwig Hamperl : The application of the fluorescence microscope to examine animal tissue. In: Z Mikr Anat Forsch. 33, 1933, pp. 193-221.
  • Eduard Haschek, Max Haitinger: Color measurements, theoretical principles and applications. Haim and Co., Vienna 1936
  • Fluorescence Microscopy - Your Application in Histology and Chemistry. Academic Publishing Company, Leipzig 1938.

Honors

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised [online] edition. Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-7001-3213-4 , p. 154 (print edition) ( biographien.ac.at - first edition: 2003, online edition and Austrian Biographical Lexicon from 1815).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Fritz Bräutigam: Dr. hc Max Haitinger, the founder of modern fluorescence microscopy . In: Fritz Bräutigam and Alfred Grabner (eds.): Contributions to fluorescence microscopy . Verlag Georg Fromme & Co., Vienna 1949, p. 7–9 ( PDF on ZOBODAT - version with the same text with different page numbers).
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Karl Höfler: Max Haitinger . In: Hugo Freund and Alexander Berg (eds.): History of microscopy. Life and work of great explorers. Volume III: Applied Sciences and Technology . Umschau Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966, p. 187-194 .
  4. ↑ Weidling parish cemetery book. (PDF) Weidling Parish, December 25, 2018, accessed on March 22, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Stanislaus von Prowazek: Fluorescence of the cells.-Reicherts fluorescence microscope. In: Zoologischer Anzeiger. 42, 1913, pp. 374-380. (Quoted from Dieter Gerlach: History of Microscopy . Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8171-1781-9 , pp. 625-657 . .)
  6. ↑ a b Dieter Gerlach: History of microscopy . Verlag Harri Deutsch, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-8171-1781-9 , pp. 625-657 .
  7. ^ Oskar Heimstädt: The fluorescence microscope . In: Journal of Scientific Microscopy . tape 28 , 1911, pp. 330-337 ( biodiversitylibrary.org ).
personal data
SURNAME Haitinger, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian microscopist
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1946
Place of death Vienna