Nathan Zuntz

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Nathan Zuntz 1910

Nathan Zuntz (born October 7, 1847 in Bonn , † March 22, 1920 in Berlin ) was a German physiologist . His extensive animal physiological work is still relevant today. He was a pioneer of modern altitude physiology and a co-founder of aeronautical medicine .

Life

Nathan Zuntz came from a Jewish merchant family. His father Leopold Zuntz (1814–1874) and his grandmother Rachel Zuntz founded the A. Zuntz sel. Wwe. Coffee roastery together in 1837 . Nathan was the eldest of eleven children of Leopold and his wife Julie Zuntz (1822–1872), née Katzenstein, from Kassel.

Zuntz studied medicine at the University of Bonn from 1864 and was Max Schultze's assistant in 1866 . During the last two semesters of his studies he worked as a junior physician with Hugo Ruehle at the Medical Clinic in Bonn. In 1868 he did his doctorate with the dissertation contributions to the physiology of blood . In the same year he passed the state examination and was thus a licensed doctor. This was followed by a several months practice substitution in Oberpleis near Bonn. After a seven-month study visit to Berlin, where he attended lectures by Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs , Albrecht von Graefe , Rudolf Virchow , Carl Westphal and Ludwig Traube , Zuntz became an assistant to his doctoral supervisor Eduard Pflüger in Bonn in 1870 . He also ran a doctor's practice until 1881. In 1871 he became a private lecturer at the University of Bonn and in 1872 honorary lecturer in physiology at the Royal Agricultural Academy in Poppelsdorf .

In 1874 Zuntz married Friederieke Bing. The marriage has three children. In the same year he became an associate professor for physiology at the University of Bonn and built up the animal physiology laboratory. In 1881 he was appointed full professor at the Animal Physiological Institute of the Royal Agricultural University in Berlin . In the 1880s, Zuntz broke away from the Jewish faith and converted to Protestantism with his family in 1889 .

In 1897, Zuntz received the fourth class Red Eagle from Kaiser Wilhelm II and in 1904 he was appointed a secret councilor . In 1906 Zuntz was elected Rector for two years by the teaching staff of the Agricultural University in Berlin and the election was confirmed by the Kaiser in accordance with the statutes. At the Agricultural University he built what was then the most modern animal physiological institute in the world. In particular, the respiratory system for large animals, which was built according to his plans, was state-of-the-art. From 1914 he put all his energy into the service of the war. In 1919, at his request, Zuntz was retired. He was denied a professorship at the university for a lifetime because of the prevailing anti-Semitism.

His grave is in the south-west cemetery in Stahnsdorf in a hereditary burial in the Heilig-Geist block, garden block I. A memorial plaque is attached to his former home, Bleibtreustraße 38/39 in Berlin.

During the rule of the National Socialists , his children and grandchildren had to emigrate from Germany. His grandson Günther Zuntz became an important classical philologist .

power

Nathan Zuntz was an extremely productive researcher. He published over 700 scientific papers. His main interest was the research of the physiology of animals and humans in stressful situations (physical work, physical exercise, staying at high altitude). He was an enthusiastic mountain and high- altitude hiker, so he carried out field research (also on his own body) in the high mountains or during balloon flights.

For a long time he dealt with the physiology of large farm animals , especially the horse . He carried out the first comprehensive and systematic investigations into the horse's energy metabolism. For this purpose, he and Julius Geppert developed the Zuntz-Geppert respiratory apparatus and, at the end of the 1880s, the treadmill , variable in speed and incline. This enabled stress studies to be carried out under defined and measurable conditions.

While the attempts at feeding horses were financially supported by the German War Ministry, the Berlin luggage march study of 1894 was commissioned by the military. The physical endurance of soldiers should be examined and the optimal food rations determined. Zuntz, who knew how to combine theory and experiment, developed a portable gas meter for breathing measurements. The work was also of importance for the rapidly developing sports medicine . In 1911, Zuntz was chairman of the sports hygiene and scientific department of the International Hygiene Exhibition in Dresden, which attracted five million visitors. The department laid the foundation for modern sports physiology and hygiene.

The participants of the expedition to Tenerife 1910, front right. Nathan Zuntz.

From 1895 Zuntz undertook several expeditions to the Monte Rosa massif . In the highest mountain hut in the Alps , Capanna Regina Margherita , on the Signalkuppe (4554 m above sea level), he researched the effects of the high altitude climate on the human organism. Among other things, he studied the increase in red blood cells when staying at altitude for a long time. Later he continued the examinations on the Teide on Tenerife and in the pneumatic cabinet of the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. Thorough research into acute altitude sickness became more urgent as balloonists advanced to ever greater heights. In 1901 the Berlin meteorologists Arthur Berson and Reinhard Süring had reached a height of 10,800 m in an open balloon and lost consciousness in the process. Although the trip ended happily, it became clear that knowledge about the causes of altitude sickness urgently needed to be expanded. Zuntz devoted himself to this task with remarkable dedication. In 1902 he accompanied the Austrian physiologist Hermann von Schrötter as well as Berson and Süring on two scientific balloon flights that took them to an altitude of 5000 m. Zuntz and von Schrötter each published a work on the hygiene of aviation in 1912 and have been co-founders of aviation medicine ever since . Zuntz's investigations also significantly fertilized scientific sports medicine . His contribution to the 1st Sports Medical Congress in Oberhof in 1912, the value of physiology for physical exercise, conveyed fundamental knowledge.

With the outbreak of World War I , the focus of his work shifted. Zuntz now dealt with the question of how food for the people could be ensured in times of scarce food resources. He was co-editor of the leaflet People Nutrition in War Time . As early as the first year of the war he suggested reducing the number of pigs in order to have more grain for humans. In the spring of 1915 there was actually a mass slaughter of eight to nine million pigs, the so-called pig murder . He also carried out research on protection against war gas on behalf of the War Ministry .

Awards

Berlin memorial plaque in Bleibtreustraße

Zuntz received numerous scientific and state honors for his achievements. In 1884 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . The University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (1918) and the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Bonn (1919) awarded him an honorary doctorate . He was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle 4th Class (1897), the Order of the Crown 2nd Class (1918), the Russian Order of Saint Stanislaus 2nd Class (1912/13) and the Iron Cross 2nd Class (1916).

Publications

  • with C. Lehmann and O. Hagemann: The metabolism of the horse during rest and work. In: Agricultural yearbook. 18, 1889, pp. 1-156.
  • with W. Schumburg: Studies on a physiology of the march. Hirschwald, Berlin 1901.
  • with H. von Schrötter : Results of two balloon trips for physiological purposes. In: Pflüger's archive. 92, 1902, pp. 479-520.
  • with A. Loewy , F. Müller and W. Caspari: Mountain climate and mountain hikes in their effect on people. Results of experimental research in the high mountains and in the laboratory . Publishing house Bong, Berlin 1906.
  • with A. Loewy: Textbook of human physiology. FCW Vogel, Leipzig 1909.
  • On the physiology and hygiene of aviation. Springer, Berlin 1912.

literature

  • H.-C. Gunga : Life and work of the Berlin physiologist Nathan Zuntz (1847–1920) with special consideration of its importance for the early history of altitude physiology and aviation medicine. (= Treatises on the history of medicine and the natural sciences. 58). Matthiesen, Husum 1989, ISBN 3-7868-4058-X .
  • H.-C. Gunga: Nathan Zuntz. His Life and Work in the Fields of High Altitude Physiology and Aviation Medicine. Academic Press, Amsterdam / London 2009, ISBN 978-0-12-374740-2 . (English)
  • M. Lehmann-Brune: The suitcase of Karl Zuntz. Five centuries of a Jewish family. Droste, Düsseldorf 1997, ISBN 3-7700-1076-0 .
  • S. Klingeberg-Kraus: Contribution to nutritional research in horses until 1950 . Dissertation, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, 2001.
  • A. Uhlmann: Sport is the general practitioner at the sick camp of the German people. (PDF; 1.7 MB). Dissertation, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg i. Br., 2004
  • Josef Niesen : Bonn Personal Lexicon. Bouvier, Bonn 2007, ISBN 978-3-416-03159-2 .

Web links

Commons : Nathan Zuntz  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. GStA PK I. HA Rep. 89 No. 31929, fol. 141 f.
  2. ^ Member entry by Nathan Zuntz at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on June 8, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Zuntz, Nathan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1920
Place of death Berlin