Max Rubner

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Max Rubner (1899)
Bust at the house, Robert-Rössle-Straße 10, in Berlin-Buch

Max Rubner (born June 2, 1854 in Munich , † April 27, 1932 in Berlin ) was a German physician, physiologist and hygienist .

family

His father Johann Nepomuk Rubner was a locksmith and iron merchant. His mother Barbara, b. Duscher, came from Augsburg . Rubner was married to Helene, daughter of the royal building councilor Karl Ritter von Leimbach from Munich , who died in 1915. The marriage resulted in two daughters and two sons. Johanna Quandt was one of his five grandchildren .

education and profession

Rubner attended the humanistic Max-Gymnasium in Munich and Sunday lectures at an industrial school. At the age of 15 he already owned a microscope and chemical apparatus. After graduating from high school , he studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich from 1873 to 1877 with Adolf von Baeyer , in whose chemical laboratory he worked, and with the physiologist Carl von Voit . During his studies he became a member of the AGV Munich in the special houses association . He received his doctorate in 1878 with a thesis on the use of nutrients in the intestine . Until 1880 he remained an unpaid assistant at Voit. Here Rubner developed a new concept for researching the bioenergetics of metabolism . In 1880/81 an academic year followed at the physiological institute of Carl Ludwig in Leipzig , where he continued his studies on the determination of nutrient energy values ​​in the body. In 1883 he completed his habilitation in Munich in the subject of physiology with a thesis on the calorific values of nutrients and, over the next two years, presented his completely new concepts of energy conservation, the validity of the law of conservation of energy in the animal organism, the isodynamic relationship of the nutrient calorific values ​​and the energy loss through thermal radiation and Evaporation according to the surface law. The calorimetric determination of the energy of the basic nutrients, the so-called physiological calorific value , goes back to Rubner : Carbohydrates or protein correspond to an energy intake of 1,717  kJ / 100 g (410  kcal / 100 g) and fat an energy intake of 3,894 kJ / 100 g (930 kcal / 100 g), whereby these nutrients can replace each other energetically ("isodynamy").

In 1885 Rubner accepted a professorship for hygiene and state medicine at the University of Marburg , first as an associate professor, then in 1887 as a full professor. He was convinced at the time that hygiene was only applied physiology. In Marburg he carried out work on heat regulation, body surface and metabolism (“biological laws”). In 1891 Rubner took over the chair for hygiene at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin as the successor to Robert Koch . In 1899 he became a member of the founding board of the German Association for Public Hygiene . In 1905 a large new institute was built for him. In 1909 he switched to the chair of physiology as the successor to Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann . In 1909 he was chairman of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors . From 1913 to 1926 Rubner was also director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Occupational Physiology in Berlin, which he co-founded . Several academic institutions emerged from this establishment: the Institute for Work Research (today: Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology ) in Dortmund and the Chair for Occupational Medicine at the Institute for Occupational Medicine at the Charité in Berlin. Numerous studies on nutritional physiology and metabolism, including the hygienic effects of clothing, climate, air, water, housing and temperature, as well as questions about the nutrition of entire populations, were written here. In the context of calorimetric research, he described the specific dynamic effect of organic nutrients and the surface law (basic calculability of the energy turnover of an organism according to its body surface).

Services

In 1894 Rubner established the validity of the principle of energy conservation in living organisms and from 1896 to 1903 he clarified the influence of hypothermia on metabolism and of heat (heat conduction, radiation, evaporation) on energy losses. In addition, for years he dealt with the calorie requirements of certain professions. The terms “protein minimum” (minimum daily protein intake to maintain the balance between nitrogen intake and excretion) and “ wear rate ” (daily nitrogen loss without protein intake) come from Rubner . Rubner defined 100 g protein per day as the “hygienic protein minimum” for adults (1914). According to Rubner, lifespan is a function of energy consumption.

During the First World War Rubner was active in the field of national nutrition , investigating questions of changed eating habits due to increasing urbanization and social change as well as the consequences of the Allied blockade (famine) on the civilian population (1918). During the last years of his life, based on research results on nutrition and metabolism, he expanded his subject to include comprehensive human problems: world nutrition, struggle for survival, hunger , malnutrition , disease, poor living and health conditions.

Rubner was notoriously withdrawn and possessed a sense of sarcastic humor. As a researcher he was meticulous and inventive, for example he designed calorimetric apparatus himself. Rubner can be considered the founder of scientific nutritional physiology, physical-chemical, experimental hygiene as well as scientific work physiology, occupational medicine and applied physiology.

Honors

Awards

  • Secret Senior Medical Councilor
  • The Max Rubner Institute (MRI), Federal Research Institute for Nutrition and Food, is named after the physiologist.
  • The Max Rubner Prize of the Charité Foundation, donated by his granddaughter Johanna Quandt , is an innovation prize for change at the Charité and is endowed with up to 100,000 euros.
  • The Max Rubner Prize of the German Nutrition Society is awarded every four years.
  • Currently, three bacteria have been named in honor of Max Rubner: Streptococcus rubneri , Enteroscipio rubneri and Rubneribacter badeniensis

Works

  • About the use of some foods in the human intestinal tract. Diss. Med. Munich 1880
  • The representative values ​​of the chief organic nutrients in the animal body. Zeitschrift für Biologie 19 (1883), pp. 313-396
  • Biological laws . Annual reports of the University of Marburg 1887
  • Hygiene textbook . Vienna 1888–1890 (1891/92, 1899/1900, 1907)
  • A calorimeter for physiological and hygienic purposes. Journal of Biology 25: 400-426, 1889
  • The source of animal warmth . Zeitschrift für Biologie 30 (1894), pp. 73-142
  • The laws of energy consumption in nutrition . Leipzig 1902
  • The problem of lifespan and its relationship to growth and nutrition . Munich 1908
  • Food and Nutrition . Stuttgart 1908
  • Folk nutrition issues . Leipzig 1908
  • Power and substance in nature's household . Leipzig 1909
  • The calorimetry . In: Handbook of Physiological Methodology, Volume One: General Methodology. Protists, invertebrates, physical chemistry. Metabolism and Energy Change, Third Department: Metabolism - Respiration - Calorimetry , ed. v. Robert Tigerstedt, 150-228. Hirzel, Leipzig 1911
  • Handbook of hygiene . (Ed., 9 vols.). Leipzig 1911–1927
  • The nutritional physiology of the yeast cell during alcoholic fermentation . Leipzig 1913
  • About modern forms of nutrition . Munich 1914
  • Constitution and nutrition . Berlin 1930

literature

  • Julius Pagel : Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the 19th century. 1901, pp. 1442-1444.
  • Isidor Fischer (ed.): Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the last fifty years. Vol. 2, Munich 1962, pp. 1337-1338.
  • Karl Thomas : Max Rubner. In: German Medical Weekly. 50 (1924), p. 727.
  • Otto Kestner : Max Rubner. In: German Medical Weekly. 58: 786-788 (1932).
  • Karl Bernhard Lehmann : Max Rubner. In: Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift. 79: 1038-1042 (1932).
  • Erhard Glaser :  Max Rubner in memory. In:  Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift , year 1932, No. 20, p. 626 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wmw
  • G. Lusk: Contributions to the science of nutrition, a tribute to the life and work of Max Rubner. Science, 76: 129-135 (1932).
  • William H. Chambers: Max Rubner. In: Journal of Nutrition 48 (1952), pp. 3-12. http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/48/1/1
  • HC Knowles: Max Rubner. Diabetes 6 (1957), pp. 369-371.
  • Karl Eduard Rothschuh : Max Rubner. In: Dictionary of Scientific Biography XI. New York 1975, pp. 585-586.
  • Peter Schneck: Max Rubner. In: H.-L. Wussing (Hrsg.): Fachlexikon abc, researcher and inventor. Frankfurt / M. 1992, pp. 498-499.
  • Eberhard J. Wormer :  Rubner, Max. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 158 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Daniel Schmidt: Between expertise and propaganda. Max Rubner and the war food in the First World War. In: T. Plesser, / HUThamer (ed.): Work, performance and nutrition. From the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Work Physiology in Berlin to the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology and Leibniz Institute for Work Research in Dortmund. Stuttgart 2012, pp. 237-262.

Web links

Commons : Max Rubner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Grübel, Special Houses Association of German Student Choral Societies (SV): Cartel address book. As of March 1, 1914. Munich 1914, p. 114.
  2. ^ Member entry by Max Rubner (with picture) at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on June 23, 2016.
  3. ↑ Member entry of Max Rubner at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 23, 2016.
  4. ^ DDB
  5. ↑ [1]
  6. ↑ [2]
personal data
SURNAME Rubner, Max
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physiologist and hygienist
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1932
Place of death Berlin