Paul frog
Paul Otto Max Frosch (born August 15, 1860 in Berlin ; † June 2, 1928 there ) was a German bacteriologist and virologist .
The early years
Paul Frosch was born in Jüterbog as the illegitimate son of a 22-year-old prospective lawyer and a glove maker. His parents did not get married until Paul started school.
After graduating from high school in 1882, he studied medicine in Würzburg. At the Physikum in 1884, the professors recognized his talent and offered him a position. However, he refused and decided to continue his studies in Leipzig and finally Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1887 and obtained his license to practice medicine . During his studies he served for half a year in 1883 and 1886 in the royal Prussian army as a junior physician.
After completing his studies, he devoted himself to bacteriology and volunteered at the Hygiene Institute of the University of Berlin as an unpaid assistant.
In April 1889 he married Elise Bertha (* 1867, nee Grothe), who gave birth to his first son Leopold in 1890. Four more children followed, Felix, Charlotte, Dagobert and Robert, the godchild of Robert Koch .
The time with Robert Koch
Koch, who was already world-famous at the time, valued the young researcher's abilities and in 1891, as one of his first employees at the newly founded Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases (IfIK) in Berlin (now the Robert Koch Institute ), offered him the position of a regular assistant in the scientific department. He was one of Koch's closer staff, which also included Paul Ehrlich , Friedrich Loeffler , August von Wassermann , Richard Pfeiffer , Carl Fraenkel , Emil von Behring and Erich Wernicke .
At the instigation of the Prussian Ministry of Culture and Agriculture, Koch set up a Commission for Foot and Mouth Disease in 1897 with the aim of researching this disease , which is still causing considerable losses among cloven-hoofed animals , and developing possible defense therapies. The commission included Friedrich Loeffler as head as well as Paul Frosch from IfIK, Paul Uhlenhuth (IfIK), who had just been appointed professor, and Wilhelm Schütz , director of the University of Veterinary Medicine Berlin, as technical adviser .
The commission carried out its research under the most primitive conditions, first in a suburban railway arch in Berlin and later in Greifswald . The report of the commission shows how Friedrich Loeffler and Frosch in numerous experiments, partly in the affected areas on site, as well as with the method of filtering contaminated material (FMD lymph) through bacteria-proof filters (clay), the virus step by step Came closer. They discovered the first infectious disease caused by viruses in animals and are considered to be the founders of virology.
In the years up to 1907, still in the service of Koch and already appointed to the head of the scientific department as Pfeiffer's successor at the IfIK, Frosch devoted himself to researching and combating a wide variety of infectious diseases. As head of the fight against malaria on Brioni (then Austria-Hungary) as well as commissioner of the Prussian government for research into the plague in Porto, further as head of the Prussian commission for the fight against typhus in the Ruhr area and the administrative district of Trier, Frosch did a great job.
He was with Koch from the beginning until Koch left the RKI. One of the few among Koch's immediate students, as the adjacent list of early employees at the Robert Koch Institute shows.
In the style of the time he received the Red Eagle Order IV. Class, the Officer's Cross of the Emperor Franz Joseph Order and the Crown Order 3rd Class. He received the Commemorative St. Louis Medal Award from the St. Louis Purchase Exposition (USA 1904) for work on swine fever .
Time at the hygiene institute
When Frosch, who had just been appointed to the Secret Medical Council, was appointed director of the Hygiene Institute at the Berlin Veterinary University in 1908, he was a regular professor and 48 years old. He received the call after Friedrich Loeffler did not want to leave Greifswald.
From October 1914 to October 1918 he served on foot in the Imperial 2nd Guards Regiment as a senior staff doctor. Then he returned to his old position at the Hygiene Institute. His research focused on the morphology of the tuberculosis pathogen and again the foot-and-mouth disease. In 1927 he and H. Dahmen succeeded in isolating the FMD pathogen for the first time.
Paul Frosch died on June 2, 1928, shortly before his retirement, which he had postponed twice by a year, of lung cancer at home with his family.
Impressions from contemporary witnesses
Frosch's former assistant, companion and friend Wilhelm von Drigalski wrote in his book (1948):
“My head of department, Professor Frosch, with his open, carefree manner, his aversion to screwy nature and his excellent sense of humor fit perfectly into this circle. Later a young medical officer, commanded to fight typhoid, reported to him once, with a decidedly brisk nature, in a flawless gold-embroidered tunic, nimble, confident and without giving up. Afterwards, Frosch said badly that he didn't like it. 'Why not - maybe because he was dressed so neatly?' I asked very gruffly. I hope he doesn't find me very different. 'No', said Frosch and smiled, 'when I think how you first appeared to me, suspicious, taciturn - that was something completely different'. We had to laugh; Accuracy in the suit wasn't his strong point. He was a steadfast smoker and later perished of pulmonary sarcoma, probably caused by smoking. Of course, this man also had his faults. But he was a loyal friend and an excellent help for Koch. Even Jürgens, who was less interested in him than me, said that Koch couldn't have picked a better one to fight typhus. Above all, I have never met a scholar who possessed the aristocratic virtue of envy in a higher degree.
Its downsides were on the outside. In contrast, he had many interests; He was musically, a good mathematician, scientifically very conscientious, was interested in astronomy, owned a huge telescope himself and kept several dogs. The meat for this was kept in the telescope cabinet. It stank considerably, but he took it philosophically. An internally unusually independent measure, even enchantingly unconventional and yet thoroughly appreciative of good shapes, appearance and neatness in others. "
legacy
The Society for Virology (GfV) gives every year during the annual meeting of the "Loeffler Frog Award" for young scientists and the "Loeffler Frog medal" for life work of virologists.
literature
- Wilhelm von Drigalski: In Robert Koch's field of activity. Dulk, Hamburg 1948, pp. 110-111.
- Hans Hartwigk: Frosch, Paul Max Otto. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 664 ( digitized version ).
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Frog, paul |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Frosch, Paul Max Otto (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German bacteriologist and virologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 15, 1860 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 2, 1928 |
| Place of death | Berlin |