Paul Adloff

Paul Max Eugen Adloff (born February 9, 1870 in Königsberg ; † May 2, 1944 there ) was a German dentist and anthropologist .

Life

Youth and Studies

Paul Adloff was born as the third child of the chancellery council at the royal higher regional court August Adloff and his wife Amanda Mathilde Auguste, geb. Wottrich, born. The families had lived in East Prussia for centuries; Paul Adloff himself could safely document the origin of the Adloff family up to the 16th century. Paul Adloff attended the royal Friedrichs Collegium and the Kneiphöfische Gymnasium , the city's old-language high school, in Königsberg. He left the Kneiphöfische Gymnasium in 1889 at the request of his father in Unterprima (12th grade) in order to complete a commercial training (July 1889-March 1892). This was successfully completed, but his job and prospects did not satisfy Paul Adloff. From April 1892 to April 1893, Adloff fulfilled his military duty as a one-year volunteer with the Grenadier Regiment "King Friedrich Wilhelm I." (2nd East Prussian) No. 3 and immediately performed a reserve exercise as a sergeant in the same regiment. During this time, the decision to study dentistry matured.

After a three-month commercial activity in the summer of 1893, he enrolled at the University of Königsberg in the winter semester of 1893/94 and, as in the summer semester of 1894, attended anatomical and zoological lectures. In the winter semester of 1894/95, Adloff moved to the University of Marburg , in particular to hear the then respected dental teacher Julius Witzel (1863-1914). At the beginning of the summer semester of 1895, Adloff enrolled at the University of Jena , where an equally respected teacher of dentistry worked, Adolph Witzel (1847–1906), a brother of Julius Witzel. Above all, Adolph Witzel had intensively researched the area of ​​tooth root treatment. In the winter semester of 1895/96 he became a member of the student union Salia Jena (today: Turnerschaft Salia Jenensis Göttingen). On December 22, 1896, Adloff passed the state examination in dentistry with the grade “good” and on January 26, 1897 received his license to practice medicine. Then he was able to work as a volunteer assistant in Adolph Witzel’s clinic. At the same time, however, he continued his scientific studies at the University of Jena and deepened his knowledge by listening to lectures on general and specific zoology and botanical systematics, as he did during his dental training, but above all in Ernst Haeckel's zoological laboratory under the direction of Willy Kükenthal worked practically.

Adloff's contact with Kükenthal, a pupil of Ernst Haeckel and an important connoisseur of the development of mammalian dentition, was the decisive impetus for his later life's work, which focused on comparative anatomical problems, in particular the development of the teeth. Kükenthal stimulated him to write a dissertation on the subject of "The history of the development of rodent teeth" , which was completed in January 1898 at the University of Rostock during the winter semester of 1897/98 . The philosophy faculty of the university received Paul Adloff's doctorate with this thesis on January 24, 1898 as Dr. phil. (Major in zoology, minor in botany and geography). In the summer semester of 1898, Adloff worked again as a volunteer assistant to Adolph Witzel in Jena, but then settled down as a dentist in Königsberg in August 1898.

Resident dentist in Königsberg 1898–1911

He became a member of the Society of East Prussian Dentists and organized and conducted exemplary training activities in this group for the benefit of resident dentists. Even as a resident dentist, Adloff published numerous smaller and larger papers in prestigious scientific journals. The subject comprised three areas: professional policy issues, the practice of dental problems and their treatment, and comparative anatomical and developmental issues. Very early on (as early as 1903), the importance of the dentition for questions relating to the history of human development was discussed here. In 1908 a comprehensive account of Adloff appeared: The teeth of humans and the anthropomorphic. Comparative anatomical studies. At the same time a contribution to human tribal history . The work was received with great recognition by the domestic and foreign experts of the time, without exception.

At the 5th International Dental Conference in Berlin in 1909, Adloff was elected chairman of Section I, which covered the areas of anatomy, physiology and histology, because of his in-depth knowledge.

University of Greifswald 1911–1920

This extensive, continuous scientific activity in connection with the daily practical work of a resident dentist led to Adloff, at the suggestion of Fritz König , director of the royal surgical clinic and polyclinic of the University of Greifswald, and Guido Fischer , the head of the dental, surgical clinic, in 1911 assigned institute, which was appointed to the Philipps University of Marburg , was appointed as successor. Adloff gave up the security of having his own practice, accepted the offer and accepted the condition on the part of the university that neither salary nor any other remuneration be granted with the exception of an annual scholarship of 1,200 marks, which his predecessor had also received.

When Adloff took office in Greifswald, he was thanked by the Society of East Prussian Dentists in Königsberg, which emphasized his great commitment during the Königsberg period and appointed him a corresponding member.

Due to the academic achievements previously made, Adloff was admitted to the University of Greifswald for habilitation . Adloff held the inaugural lecture on August 5, 1911 in the small auditorium of the University of Greifswald on the subject of inheritance and selection in the human dental system.After completing this post-doctoral degree, he received the venia legendi for the field of dentistry at the University of Greifswald.

On November 22, 1913, the private lecturer at the Greifswald Medical Faculty and head of the dental department of the surgical clinic at the University of Greifswald, Dr. phil. Paul Adloff, appointed professor by the Prussian minister of education.

Adloff further developed the institute, which was already emerging under Fischer's direction, under the most difficult economic conditions. These efforts resulted in the fact that since April 15, 1916, the Dental Institute was no longer run as a sub-unit of the surgical clinic, but as an independent unit under the direction of Adloff, on the instructions of the minister.

In 1915 Adloff was appointed chief dentist in a medical formation of the III. Army corps called up to Chauny / France, his pay book shows payments from December 15, 1914 to October 31, 1915.

Adloff's publications during his time in Greifswald again reveal a threefold structure: Statements on questions of professional politics, multiple papers on dental problems and - equally important - publications on the comparative anatomy of dentition development and on human tribal history, insofar as it concerned the dentition. During this time the scientific controversy with the theses of the Amsterdam anatomist Louis Bolk (1866–1930) falls . Adloff reacted to Bolk's theses with a critical examination: in a book published by Meusser-Verlag , Berlin, entitled The Development of the Dental System in Mammals and Humans - A Critique of Bolk's Dimer Theory , he took an unequivocal position against Bolks after Adloffs View misleading theses on the development of the teeth in mammals.

In terms of professional policy, publications appeared in which Adloff thought about the future of dentistry. In this context he spoke out against the doctoral title “Dr. med. dent. ”from and for the integration of dental training in general medical studies with the possibility of obtaining a doctorate as“ Dr. med. ".

In 1919 the first doctoral regulations for dentists in Greifswald were issued. The title “Dr. med. dent. ”had established itself politically. At the request of the Medical Faculty Greifswald, the private lecturer Dr. phil. Adloff was the first in Prussia on October 11, 1919 to receive an honorary doctorate “Dr. med. dent. h (onoris) c (ausa) ”, who, according to the rationale,“ largely promoted scientific dentistry through excellent studies on the development of the teeth and the comparative anatomy of the teeth, and as a representative of dentistry at our university, the institute under his authority blossomed and developed a particularly successful teaching activity ”.

University of Königsberg 1920–1935

In 1919 Adloff received a call to the scheduled Extraordinariat for Dentistry at the University of Königsberg. Adloff was familiar with the desolate institutional conditions in Koenigsberg, reinforced by the difficult post-war conditions, and reacted hesitantly to negatively. In difficult negotiations, Adloff finally got the promise for a new institute building (Alte Pillauer Landstrasse 5), which was inaugurated in 1923, corresponding to the scientific level of the time.

Adloff left Greifswald after the winter semester of 1919/20 and began working and teaching at the University of Königsberg in the second half of 1920.

At the beginning of 1920 he was appointed as an extraordinary professor by the Prussian minister of education Konrad Haenisch with effect from January 24th . On March 30, 1921 he was appointed full professor. In 1923 the new dental institute was inaugurated. In the presence of the Minister of Education, Dr. Otto Boelitz gave Adloff a programmatic address on the tasks and future of the institute. In 1927/28 he was dean of the medical faculty. In 1930 Adloff was invited by the Stockholm Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine to submit a proposal for the 1931 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. He retired in 1935 and was not granted an honorary year. Paul Adloff died on May 2, 1944 in Königsberg a few months before the city was destroyed.

Numerous publications on dental and anthropological topics were also produced during the Königsberg period, statements of professional policy now faded into the background. Adloff published over 200 works as the sole author until the end of his life on May 2, 1944, the last work was published in 1949, due to the war and the post-war period. From 1924 to 1934 he was editor of the quarterly journal for dentistry .

One focus of dental interest was in the 20s the dentogenic (from the teeth outgoing) stove - or focal infection, returned to the Adloff important contributions. Because of the importance of the topic, he made his colleague, the later head of the Hamburg University Dental Clinic, Eduard Precht (1893-1938), free for several months in 1925 to do the experimental at the Mayo Clinic , Rochester / USA, with Edward C. Rosenow To be able to develop the basis for studying this disease.

Adloff's greatest interest was undoubtedly in odontological anthropology (relating to the teeth). There were also works on problems of dentition development, the origin of the tooth shape, the ancestral history of the human dentition, in particular connected with the so-called canine problem. Adloff was in international exchange with the researchers of his time working in the same field, u. a. with Raymond Dart , Franz Weidenreich and Robert Broom , and he was able to examine casts of the finds of Australopithecus africanus , Sinanthropus pekinensis , Paranthropus and Plesianthropus (now assigned to Australopithecus africanus ). The dentition of the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus ( Taung's child ) recognized Adloff as the only German scientist as belonging to a hominid .

He was the first to draw attention very early on to the importance of the dentition for anthropological research, especially for the assessment of human fossil remains.

The addition of comparative anatomical and developmental studies of the teeth and the development of the teeth in humans with the observations by the dentist arising from the daily inspection of the teeth - variations of the normal, misalignments, incorrect developments and other pathological conditions of the teeth - resulted in a wealth of detailed findings and derived from them Hypotheses. These contributed to an intensive and sometimes very controversial discussion in the specialist literature of the time and sharpened the arguments on both sides (Ahrens, Aichel, Louis Bolk , Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger , Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald , Adolf Remane , Franz Weidenreich ).

Due to his lifelong preoccupation with the development of the teeth, which began with the dissertation, Adloff formulated a hypothesis with which he found himself in contradiction to many other researchers (in particular A. Remane and Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald). Based on his investigations, he took the view that the “original”, “primitive” dentition of the hominids could not be derived from the “specialized” dentition of the anthropoid , that in the development to humans a reduction of the specialized anthropoid canine to the small human canine cannot be proven let it be said that humans - belonging to the primates - have never passed through an anthropoid stage. There is therefore no transitional form - the often assumed missing link . Adloff postulated that humans are the terminal members of an unknown primate tribe with rich development potential, while the anthropoids, which had already lost their adaptability in the Miocene due to extensive specialization, represented side branches of this tribe. A diversion of the hominids from the line leading to anthropoids could therefore only have taken place in the early Tertiary , i.e. well before the Miocene, when the specialization of the anthropoids had not yet taken place, when their dentition was still as simple as that of the hominids .

Adloff was of the opinion that he had developed the better arguments for these assumptions. This hypothesis, based solely on morphological investigations, is contrasted today with molecular biological investigations which postulate a diversion of hominids from the tribe of anthropoids 6 to 8 million years ago.

Memberships and honorary memberships

• Central Association of German Dentists
• Society of East Prussian Dentists
• Association of Western Pomeranian Dentists
• Association of private lecturers at the University of Greifswald
• Königsberg learned society
• Prussia Antiquities Society, Königsberg (see also Prussia Collection )
• East Prussian Physical-Economic Society, Königsberg
• Danish Working Group for Paradentosis Research, ARPA, Copenhagen

Fonts (selection)

• On the history of the development of the rodent dentition. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the High Philosophical Faculty of the University of Rostock. Jena . Gustav Fischer, 1898 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.46862
• The dentition of man and the anthropomorphic . J. Springer, Berlin 1908 doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.61874
• The future of dentistry in Germany . In: Zahnärztliche Rundschau , 1917; 26: Issue 5
• Inauguration of the new dental institute in Königsberg . In: Zahnärztliche Rundschau , 1923; 32: Issue 35/36
• Odontology and Anthropology . In: Zahnärztliche Rundschau , 1941; 50: Issue 11

literature

• Eduard Precht: Paul Adloff. In: German dental weekly. 1935, p. 857.
• Hermann Euler : Prof. Dr. phil Dr. med. dent. hc Paul Adloff passed away. In: German dental weekly. 1944, p. 208.
• Erich Heinrich: In memory of Prof. Adloff. In: Zahnärztliche Rundschau. Vol. 53 (1944), pp. 553 f.
• Paul Adloff, the patron of the special anthropology and development history in dentistry and the longtime editor of the quarterly magazine for dentistry in commemoration. In: German dentistry, oral and maxillofacial medicine. Vol. 10 (1943/44), Issue 11/12
• Bärbel Sand: The work of the stomatologist and anthropologist Paul Adloff (1870-1944) in Greifswald . Dissertation, University of Greifswald, 1970.
• Klaus Wasser: Paul Adloff as a dental anthropologist . Dissertation, University of Cologne, 1971.

Web links

• Literature by and about Paul Adloff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Paul Adloff website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the history of the Clinic for Dentistry, Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine at the University of Marburg ( Memento from October 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Significant Langensalza Witzel personalities ( memento from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), KM dentistry ( memento from December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
3. ↑ Erich Schrader: History of the Turnerschaft Salia zu Jena. Part II: 1911-1930. P. 329.
4. ↑ Max Mechow, Renowned CCER, Historia Academica, Volume 8/9, p. 7
5. ↑ The teeth of humans and the anthropomorphic in Springer-Verlag Berlin 1908, 169 pages with 9 text figures and 27 plates
6. ↑ DNB 982616236
7. ↑ Adloff, Paul: The teeth of Australopithecus africanus dart. Some additional remarks on the canine problem. In: Zeitschrift für Anatomie und Entwicklungsgeschichte 97, 1932, pp. 145–156.
8. ↑ Goran Štrkalj: Becoming a hominid: Notes on the early taxonomy of Australopithecus . In: Anthropological Review 2000; 63: 31-38. PDF ( Memento from August 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive )