Otto Frank (physiologist)

Otto Frank (born June 21, 1865 in Groß-Umstadt ; † November 12, 1944 in Munich ) was a German doctor and cardiovascular physiologist.

family

Otto Frank was the son of Georg Frank (1838–1907), Dr. med. and general practitioner, and Mathilde Lindenborn (1841–1906). Otto Frank married Theres Schuster from Munich.

education and profession

Frank studied medicine in Munich and Kiel from 1884 to 1889 (license to practice medicine in Munich 1889). In 1885 he became a member of the Isaria Corps . From 1889 to 1891 he devoted himself to his training in mathematics , chemistry , physics , anatomy and zoology in Heidelberg , Glasgow , Munich and Strasbourg . He then worked as an assistant at the then world-famous Physiological Institute of Carl Ludwig in Leipzig until 1894 , where he completed his training with a doctorate in 1892.

Frank then worked as an assistant in the Physiological Institute of Carl von Voit in Munich . In 1894 he received his habilitation with a groundbreaking thesis on the function of the heart muscle, and in 1902 he received the extraordinary professorship. From 1905 to 1908 he took on a full professorship in Giessen and then returned to Munich to take over from Carl von Voit (professor and head of the physiological institute). Frank remained in this professional position until he was forced to retire by the Nazi regime in 1934. Since 1912 he was a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1925 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . In 1936 he was accepted as a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

power

In his habilitation thesis, Frank transferred the principles of isometric and isotonic contractions of the skeletal muscle to dynamic myocardial function. This was then followed by investigations into the myocardial resting extension curve or isometric, isotonic and support maxima curves ( Frank-Starling mechanism ). Fundamental work for the exact calculation of the heart work followed.

Based on the critical examination of manometric measurement methods, Frank developed precise manometers and recording instruments (Frank capsule, optical mirror, sphygmograph ) that can be used for physiological measurements . In addition, he developed the theory of the elastic vessel properties and the first coherent theory of the pulse wave and presented a method for determining the stroke volume of the heart in humans and animals, which was based on the wave theory and the wind vessel theory. BEYOND resulted in a theory of arterial blood pressure , wherein the dependencies of blood pressure amplitude, stroke volume and elastic total vascular resistance ( peripheral resistance ) referenced. Frank also examined the vibration properties of the sound-conducting apparatus in the ear and dealt with the thermodynamics of the muscle .

In 1914 he also published a critical study on "The so-called thinking animals", in which he made precise suggestions as to how, with the help of carefully carried out tests, the alleged mathematical abilities of animals, which were much discussed at the time , could be exposed as self-deception by their owners.

Otto Frank always retained his affection and fascination for parrots until his death, which posthumously earned him the Lifetime Achievement Prize - awarded by the Bavarian Bird Association.

In addition, Frank and his then doctoral students M. Kutzinski and M. Becker were able to come to an agreement in a civil way in a legal dispute over several years regarding the right to participate in the publication on the subject of "pre- and post-load cardiovascular processes". That font has always been a manifesto and reference for the much-cited "Frank Starling Mechanism".

Works

• On the dynamics of the heart muscle . Zeitschrift für Biologie 32 (1895), p. 370.
• The basic shape of the arterial pulse . Zeitschrift für Biologie 37 (1899), p. 483.
• Criticism of the elastic manometer . 1903
• The registration of the pulse by a mirror phygmograph . Münchener Medical Wochenschrift 42 (1903), pp. 1809-1810.

literature

• Wilhelm Katner:  Frank, Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 335 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Isidor Fischer (ed.): Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the last fifty years . Berlin 1932, vol. 1, p. 438.
• Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar , 6th edition, 1940/41, p. 378.
• Alfred P. Fishman, DW Richards (eds.): Circulation of the blood . New York 1964, pp. 110-113.
• A. Hahn: Nekrolog . Yearbook of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences 1944–1948, pp. 202–205.
• Karl Eduard Rothschuh: History of Physiology . Berlin 1953, pp. 184-186.
• K. Wezler: Otto Frank . In: Journal of Biology . Volume 103, 1950, pp. 92-122.
• Wilhelm Blasius, J. Boylan, K. Kramer (eds.): Founders of experimental physiology . Munich 1971.
• Otto Frank: The basic form of the arterial pulse. First treatise. Mathematical analysis. in: Zeitschrift für Biologie 37 (1899): 483-526; Translated by K.Sagawa, RKLie, J.Schaefer: The Basic Shape of the Arterial Pressure. First Treatise: Mathematical Analysis. in: J.Mol.Cell.Cardiol. 22: 253-277 (1990).
• HG Zimmer: Otto Frank and the fascination of high-tech cardiac physiology . Clinical Cardiology 27 (2004), pp. 665-666.

Web links

• History of medical research in Giessen (PDF file; 5.36 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kösener corps lists 1910, 173 , 649
2. ^ Members of the previous academies. Otto Frank. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on March 24, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Otto Frank: The so-called thinking animals. In: German Medical Weekly. Volume 40, No. 24, 1914, pp. 1224-1226