Robert Bárány

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Robert Bárány
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Robert Bárány [ ˈroːbɛrt ˈbaːraːɲ ] (born April 22, 1876 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † April 8, 1936 in Uppsala , Sweden ) was an ear, nose and throat doctor and neurootologist , who in 1914 was the first Austrian to receive the Nobel Prize for Physiology or received medicine.

Life

Robert Bárány, the eldest child of six siblings of the land manager and merchant Ignaz Bárány and Marie, daughter of the Prague Judaist Simon Hock, grew up in an enlightened and cultivated environment. At a young age, he contracted bone tuberculosis in the knee joint, which sparked his interest in medicine. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and after his doctorate in 1900 went to Frankfurt am Main as a trainee to the internist Carl von Noorden and then as an assistant doctor to the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in Heidelberg , where he dealt with neurological diseases.

From 1902 Bárány was back in Vienna and worked as an "operation child" for the surgeon Carl Gussenbauer . In 1903 he received an assistant position at the University Ear Clinic, the otological (ear medicine) clinic under the direction of Adam Politzer and from 1907 by Viktor Urbantschitsch (1847-1921). Bárány worked, researched and experimented in the most important otological school of that time on the origin of caloric nystagmus , from which his publication Physiology and Pathology of the Semicircular Canal Apparatus , published in 1907, emerged . In 1909 he obtained his habilitation in ear, nose and throat medicine and taught as a private lecturer.

For his work on physiology and pathology of the vestibular apparatus , he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1914; However, due to the events of the war, the prize was not awarded until 1915 and presented in 1916. The news of this reached him in the Russian prisoner-of-war camp in Turkistan . During the First World War Bárány worked as a surgeon in the Austro-Hungarian Army and with the fall of the Przemyśl fortress in 1915 he was taken prisoner by Russia, where he was able to supplement his otological-neurological studies of the hearing apparatus as much as possible. About the intervention of the then Swedish Crown Prince and later King Gustav VI. Adolf and the Red Cross he was released in 1916 and went back to Vienna. Here he was disappointed by the behavior of his Austrian colleagues who envied him the Nobel Prize.

Bárány left Vienna and accepted a position at the Otological Institute at Uppsala University in Sweden, where he worked as a successful and respected doctor, teacher and researcher until the end of his life. In 1926 he was appointed full university professor there, and in 1930 he was appointed head of the University Ear Clinic.

Robert Bárány was married to Ida Felicitas Berger since 1909 and had two sons and a daughter with her. The older son later became Professor of Pharmacy at Uppsala University and the younger Professor of Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; the daughter married an American physicist. Despite his lifelong health impairment mentioned above, Bárány was a passionate tennis player and mountaineer throughout his life. With the National Socialist "seizure of power" in Germany he began to be interested in his Judaism and bequeathed his library to the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem .

Awards / honors

meaning

Bárány developed the thermal test of the equilibrium organ by rinsing with cold and warm water. He also carried out investigations with the swivel chair and described the change in the direction of the nystagmus when the swivel chair was stopped. His new diagnostic and surgical methods took ear medicine out of the field of purely operative therapy. His research focus was on the balance organ in the inner ear . A number of clinical pictures such as the Bárány syndrome and the Bárány sign as well as methods such as the Bárány torsional stimulus test , the Bárány noise drums , the Bárány simulation test and the Bárány pointing test are named after him.

In Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district), Baranygasse was named after him.

Works

  • Physiology and pathology of the semicircular canal apparatus in humans . 1907.
  • The seasickness . 1911
  • Primary excision and suturing of accidental wounds . Deuticke, Vienna 1919.
  • Radical surgery of the ear without ear canal plasty for chronic middle ear suppuration, chiselling and follow-up treatment for acute mastoiditis, along with a description of the development of cranial operations for acute and chronic middle ear suppuration . Deuticke, Vienna 1923.
  • The localization of the afterimages in the retina with the help of Purkinje's vein figure (afterimage vein figure method). A means for the direct determination of the fixation point and the corresponding retinal points along with comments on the cortical mechanism of the correspondence of the retinas . 1927.

In total, Bárány published more than 180 scientific papers that deal primarily with comparative anatomical and physiological as well as clinical-experimental studies of the ear, nervous system and cerebellum.

literature

  • Gunter Joas: Robert Bárány (1876–1936), life and work with special consideration of his engagement with the Vienna University , Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-32135-X .
Lexica entries

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Bárány, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian physician, neurochemist and Nobel Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1936
Place of death Uppsala