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
- Conference president of the Assembly of German Naturalists and Doctors , Breslau 1874
- Secret Medical Council , 1882
- President of the Silesian Society for Patriotic Culture , 1885 to 1897
- Cothenius Medal of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , 1884
- Baly Medal from the Royal College of Physicians
- Order of the Red Eagle 2nd class with oak leaves
- Member or honorary member of 19 specialist societies in Germany and abroad
Fonts
- Historical and experimental information on muscle tone. In: Arch f. Anatomy, physiology, etc. scientific medicine 1856.
- Contribution to the anatomy of Peyer's glands. In: Arch f. Anatomy, physiology, etc. scientific medicine 1859.
- Physiological studies. Berlin 1856.
- Studies of the Physiological Institute in Wroclaw. Leipzig 1861–1868.
- Mechanical performance, heat development and metabolism in muscle activity. Leipzig 1864.
- Vivisection in the service of medicine. 1879
- The so-called animal magnetism. Physiological observations. Leipzig 1880
- Vivisection in the service of health. 1884
- Purkinje , Johannes Evangelista. In: General German biography. Volume 26, 1888, pp. 717-721.
literature
- Paul Grützner : Heidenhain, Rudolf . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 50, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1905, pp. 122-127.
- Karl Eduard Rothschuh : Heidenhain, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 8, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1969, ISBN 3-428-00189-3 , p. 247 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Julius Leopold Pagel: Biographical lexicon of outstanding doctors of the nineteenth century. Berlin 1901, Col. 704-705.
- Obituary. Rudolf Heidenhain. In: Br Med J. Volume 2 (1921), October 23, 1897, pp. 1215–1216, PMC 2407814 (free full text)
- Karl Hürthle : In memory of Rudolf Heidenhain . Speech given in the Aula Leopoldina, Breslau, on October 13, 1898.
- Karl Hürthle: Rudolf Heidenhain . Chronicle of the University of Breslau, 1897/98.
Web links
- Literature by and about Rudolf Heidenhain in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and references to digital sources in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
- Heidenhain at whonamedit.com
- drw.saw-leipzig.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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 ))
- ↑ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ↑ De Nervis organisque centralibus cordis cordiumque lymphaticorum ranae. Dissertation.
- ^ Disquisitiones criticae et experimentales de sanguinis quantitate in mammalium corpore exstantis. Habilitation thesis.
- ↑ Rector's speeches (HKM)
- ^ 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)
- ^ 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)
- ↑ 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 | |
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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 |