Rudolf Heidenhain

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Rudolf Heidenhain

Rudolf Peter Henrich Heidenhain (born January 29, 1834 in Marienwerder , West Prussia , † October 13, 1897 in Breslau ) was a German physiologist and university professor .

family

Rudolf Heidenhain was the son of a doctor who converted from the Jewish to the Protestant faith in 1832. He was the eldest of six sons in the family, all of whom chose the medical profession. Heidenhain married Fanny Volkmann (1841–1867) in 1859, the daughter of the physiologist Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann . From this marriage came six sons, including the anatomist Martin Heidenhain , the surgeon Lothar Heidenhain and Arthur Heidenhain , one of the most important pioneers of the German reading hall movement. Ten years after Fanny's death (1867), Rudolf Heidenhain married Mathilde (Kohli), daughter of the chief forester in Marienwerder; there are three daughters from this marriage. Heidenhain died of complications from a duodenal ulcer .

Life

When he was just eight years old, he attended Marienwerder high school . He was particularly interested in natural history and physics. He took private lessons from a pharmacist and familiarized himself with the basic concepts of chemistry and also had a penchant for botany, which he studied in the wild. At the age of 16 (1850) he matriculated to study natural sciences and medicine at the Albertus University in Königsberg . In 1852 he moved to the Friedrichs University in Halle , where the physiologist Alfred Volkmann taught him as a trainee . In 1854 he continued his studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin , where he worked as an assistant in Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond's laboratory and was able to observe his electrophysiological experiments. In 1854 Heidenhain did his doctorate in Berlin on the heart nerves in the frog.

After his medical exam in 1856, Heidenhain returned to Halle, worked first with Julius Vogel , then with Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann, and completed his habilitation there with a thesis on determining the amount of blood in mammals. In 1859, at the age of 25, he took over the chair of physiology and histology at the Silesian Friedrich Wilhelms University in Breslau as the successor to the anatomist Karl Bogislaus Reichert . For the academic year 1872/73 he was elected rector . Rudolf Heidenhain lived and worked here until his death. In 1873 Heidenhain was elected a member of the Leopoldina.

power

Heidenhain was considered a conscientious and patient observer and experimenter, an inspiring teacher and versatile researcher. He belonged to the newer generation of physiologists of the 19th century (such as Adolf Fick , Hermann Helmholtz or Julius Bernstein ) who, in contrast to vitalism, looked for mechanistic justifications for physical reality and contributed to the consolidation of modern physiology. Even Rudolf Steiner recognized the importance of Heidenhain's research and, in his obituary, took a position on the “mechanistic conception of life phenomena”. With work that combined microscopy, histology, physiological experiments and chemical analyzes, Heidenhain came to scientific conclusions that are still valid today. In addition, Heidenhain was a proponent of animal experimental methods ( vivisection ), which he considered indispensable for medical science. Heidenhain himself published 70 original works. From 1859 to 1897 another 170 works were published by the Physiological Institute, which were created under his guidance and cooperation. Heidenhain was one of the internationally most influential physiologists of his time.

Gland physiology

Heidenhain discovered different functions of serous and mucous salivary glands , which he was able to prove histologically. He pointed two different types of glandular cells in the gastric mucosa after, pepsin and hydrochloric acid producing cells. For the first time he described secretion formation processes in the glandular cell (granule precursors, secretion). Further systematic studies involved the pancreas , liver , lymph glands and mammary glands . In addition, he rejected the purely physical explanation of gland secretion ( diffusion , osmosis ) after he had examined the behavior of kidney cells and was able to assign the water excretion of the Bowman capsule and the urine excretion to the kidney tubules. According to Heidenhain's research, the absorption of nutrients from the small intestine into the blood has proven to be a complex process that can also take place against a concentration gradient .

Muscle physiology

Heidenhain discovered through thermoelectric measurements for the first time that the slightest muscle contraction leads to a temperature increase (by 0.001–0.005 ° C). He also demonstrated that the total thermomechanical energy of muscle activity increases with increasing active tension. He showed that the muscle mobilizes more energy when it is contracted against resistance. He also showed that the energy consumption of working and tiring muscles is regulated extremely efficiently and economically.

Neurophysiology

Heidenhain was the first to describe the influence of the vagus nerve on the heart rate and the strength development of the heart muscle . He also looked at the reactions of the autonomic nervous system to sensitive stimuli (e.g. blood pressure and skin temperature). He observed that the increased blood flow and warming of the skin lead to the cooling of the blood. Therefore, the core body temperature drops .

He developed an apparatus ("tetanomotor") with which the excitability of motor nerves could be determined very precisely in animal experiments.

In 1880 Heidenhain was among the spectators of a performance by the Danish stage hypnotist Carl Hansen in Breslau, marveled at the effects of suggestions and then began experimental studies of the physiological mechanisms of " animal magnetism ". He noticed the individually differently strong suggestibility in humans. One of his brothers was particularly receptive to suggestions and made himself available as a test subject. Neurophysiologically, Heidenhain explained hypnosis as a condition with reduced activity of the cerebral cortex and coined the term “central inhibition” (cortical inhibition ). Decades later, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov , who had studied with Heidenhain in 1877 and 1884, observed hypnotic states of his laboratory animals in experiments on the conditioned reflex . In 1910 he suspected that the cause was also an inhibition of the cerebral cortex (partial cortical inhibition).

Awards

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Heppner: Jews as inventors and discoverers. Welt-Verlag, 1913, DNB 366310747 , p. 92. ( Archived copy ( Memento from January 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ))
  2. ↑ Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 143.
  3. ^ Hans Dühring : The Marienwerder high school. From cathedral school to high school. (= East German contributions from the Göttingen working group. Volume 30). Hölzner Verlag, Würzburg 1964, p. 106.
  4. ↑ De Nervis organisque centralibus cordis cordiumque lymphaticorum ranae. Dissertation.
  5. ^ Disquisitiones criticae et experimentales de sanguinis quantitate in mammalium corpore exstantis. Habilitation thesis.
  6. ↑ Rector's speeches (HKM)
  7. ^ Rudolf Steiner: Rudolf Heidenhain, died on October 13, 1897. In: Magazin für Literatur. Volume 66, No. 44, November 6, 1897 (Complete Edition Volume 30, pp. 549–551) (anthroposophie.byu.edu)
  8. ^ Rudolf Heidenhain: A mechanical tetanomotor for vivisections. In: Jacob Moleschott: Investigations on the natural science of humans and animals. Volume 4, 1858, p. 124. (books.google.de)
  9. ↑ George Windholz: Hypnosis and inhibition as viewed by Heidenhain and Pavlov. In: Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. Volume 31, 1996, pp. 155-162.
personal data
SURNAME Heidenhain, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heidenhain, Rudolf Peter Henrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1834
PLACE OF BIRTH Marienwerder , West Prussia
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 1897
Place of death Wroclaw