Paul Uhlenhuth

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Emil Stumpp : Paul Uhlenhuth (1931)

Paul Theodor Uhlenhuth (born January 7, 1870 in Hanover , † December 13, 1957 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a German bacteriologist and hygienist .

Life

Paul Uhlenhuth's parents were the secret building officer Carl Christoph Uhlenhuth (born December 19, 1835 in Paderborn, † April 2, 1910 in Hanover) and his wife Elise Wasmus (born September 8, 1841 in Braunschweig, † February 23, 1925 in Hanover).

Paul Uhlenhuth attended high school in Magdeburg and Hanover. He completed his medical training from 1889-1894 at the Kaiser-Wilhelms-Akademie for military medical education and in 1889 became a member of the Pépinière-Corps Franconia. 1893 at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität for Dr. med. after receiving his doctorate, he joined the Charité as a junior physician in 1894/95 . In 1897 he became a military medical assistant to Robert Koch at the Institute for Infectious Diseases. In the same year he became senior physician with Friedrich Loeffler , with whom he came to the Hygiene Institute of the Royal University of Greifswald . There he was appointed adjunct professor in 1903 and private lecturer in hygiene in 1905 . From 1906 to 1911 Uhlenhuth was director of the bacteriological department of the Imperial Health Department . In 1911, the Kaiser Wilhelms University of Strasbourg appointed him to the chair of hygiene and bacteriology. After the Armistice of Compiègne (1918) he was expelled like all German professors (and student associations) from the former Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine . He came to the Philipps University of Marburg . From 1923 until his retirement in 1939 he taught at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg . His plan to establish a Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for epidemic research and experimental therapy in Freiburg could not be realized in 1928. In the early days of National Socialism , on April 11, 1933, he was one of the signatories of a decree that included the dismissal of his Jewish colleagues. In 1937 he became a member of the NSDAP . In 1938 Uhlenhuth traveled to Japan to intensify German-Japanese relations in medicine. During the Second World War , on August 18, 1942, he became an extraordinary member of the Scientific Senate of the Army Medical Services. In this position he applied to the Wehrmacht High Command in 1944 to conduct immunization tests on colored prisoners of war (according to Ernst Klee ) or to examine the blood of colored French soldiers (according to Bernd Martin ).

Paul Uhlenhuth married Martha von Klüfer on May 8, 1899 in Hannoversch Münden (* February 1, 1873, † October 10, 1961). Their first daughter Margarethe was born on February 4, 1900, their second daughter Irmgard on July 26, 1903 and their third daughter Clara on August 1, 1905, all three in Greifswald.

research

In 1901 Uhlenhuth discovered the method (biological protein differentiation), which is important for forensic medicine, to distinguish between human and animal blood ( Uhlenhuth test or Uhlenhuth test, see blood trail ). The Uhlenhuth test received a lot of public attention in connection with the murder of Lucie Berlin . Uhlenhuth also developed protective and healing serums against swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease . In 1915 he discovered the causative agent of Weil's disease (representative of the bacterial genus Leptospira ) and a serum to combat it. By discovering the chemotherapeutic significance of atoxyl , Uhlenhuth founded the arsenic treatment of syphilis , which was continued by Paul Ehrlich , as well as the antimony therapy of many tropical diseases; promoted cancer research and the expansion of chemotherapy. Uhlenhuth was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Medicine several times between 1910 and 1952, including by Karl Landsteiner .

Honors

Grave of Paul Uhlenhuth in the main cemetery in Freiburg im Breisgau

Today's rating

At the end of the 20th century he came under fire in Freiburg because he was actively involved in the dismissal of Jewish and politically different colleagues in April 1933. A street in Freiburg named after him was therefore renamed after Siegfried Thannhauser . The Uhlenhuth house of the Freiburg University Medical Center was renamed after Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs . The historian Bernd Martin, chairman of the commission of experts on Freiburg street names, judged the renaming to be "too hasty".

In 2014, the city of Hanover appointed an advisory board made up of experts to check whether people who gave their names to streets “had active participation in the Nazi regime or serious personal actions against humanity”. He suggested the renaming of the street named after Uhlenhuth. In 1933 he had the effect that 39 employees of the University of Freiburg were dismissed “because of their Jewish origin or their politically unreliable attitude”. In his research, he “accepted” violations of the “dignity and physical integrity” of people.

Publications

  • The biological process for the recognition and differentiation of human and animal blood as well as other protein substances and its application in forensic practice. Selected collection of works and reports. Fischer, Jena 1905.
  • with H. Grossmann : observations on severe general syphilis in rabbits after testicular, intravenous and subcutaneous vaccination. In: Arch. Dermatol. Syph. Volume 152, 1926, pp. 708-737.
  • Development and results of chemotherapy (= meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, mathematical and natural science class. Born 1948, Abh. 3, ISSN  0371-0165 ). Springer, Heidelberg 1948.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kösener Corpslisten 1960, 60/283
  2. ↑ a b c Wolfgang U. Eckart: Paul Uhlenhuth . In: Wolfgang U. Eckart, Christoph Gradmann (Hrsg.): Ärztelexikon. From antiquity to the 20th century , 1st edition 1995 CH Beck Munich, pp. 358–359, medical dictionary. From antiquity to the present , 2nd edition 2001, p. 313, 3rd edition 2006 Springer Verlag, Heidelberg, Berlin, New York, p. 327.
  3. ↑ a b c d Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. Updated edition. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 634.
  4. ↑ a b Frank Zimmermann: "A delicate and difficult thing". BZ interview with historian Bernd Martin about the investigation and evaluation of Freiburg street names , Badische Zeitung , January 8, 2014, accessed on August 1, 2015.
  5. ↑ Paul Theodor Uhlenhuth: A method for differentiating the different types of blood, in particular for the differential diagnostic evidence of human blood. In: German Medical Weekly . Vol. 27, 1901, No. 6, ISSN  0012-0472 , p. 82 f .; and: More information about my method of detecting human blood. Ibid p. 260 f.
  6. ↑ Nomination Database: Paul Uhlenhuth , nobelprize.org
  7. ^ Paul Uhlenhuth in the membership directory of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences
  8. ↑ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of October 2, 2015, p. 18.
  9. ↑ These ten streets are to be renamed in: Online edition of Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from October 2, 2015, accessed on October 3, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Uhlenhuth, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Uhlenhuth, Paul Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bacteriologist and hygienist
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH December 13, 1957
Place of death Freiburg in Breisgau