Wolfgang Josef Pauli

Wolfgang Josef Pauli (born September 11, 1869 in Prague , † November 4, 1955 in Zurich ) was an Austrian physician and biochemist ( colloid chemistry , chemistry of proteins ).

Life

Wolfgang Pauli came from a Jewish publishing family in Prague (his father Jacob Pascheles was a bookseller) and was originally called Wolf Pascheles, but he changed his name in 1898 after the conversion to Catholicism.

Paul visited the Old Town High School in Prague, where he studied from 1887 at the Deutsche Karls-University medicine with the promotion of Dr. med. 1893. Ernst Mach and Franz Hofmeister were among his teachers . After completing his doctorate, he worked as an assistant at the Rudolfspital in Vienna and from 1894 at the university clinic under Hermann Nothnagel , where he qualified as a professor in internal medicine in 1899 (studies of the swelling process). In 1908 he became associate professor and in 1919 full professor for biological-physical chemistry and head of the institute at the University of Vienna . In 1934 he retired and, as a Jew, had to leave Vienna after the annexation of Austria in 1938. He went to Zurich and worked there with Paul Karrer at the University's Chemical Institute.

He did fundamental work in colloid chemistry and developed a theory of colloids. The observation that the surface charge of proteins depends on the pH value provided a basis for electrophoresis and, together with Karl Landsteiner, developed a forerunner of electrophoresis devices ( transfer apparatus for protein purification). He examined the influence of the charge of proteins on hydration , swelling and optical rotation, examined the effect of protective colloids and the effect of ionizing radiation on proteins.

He was married to the journalist and women's rights activist Bertha Pauli and is the father of Wolfgang Pauli and Hertha Pauli . After the death of his wife Berta in 1927, he married the sculptor Maria Rottler in 1928.

He was a member of the Leopoldina (1904), a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (1934) and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1950). In 1954 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in Vienna and in 1939 an honorary member of the Association of Austrian Chemists.

Fonts

• Colloid chemistry of the protein bodies. Steinkopff, Dresden / Leipzig 1921 (2nd edition 1933).
• Electrochemistry of Colloids. Springer, 1929.

literature

• August W. Holldorf:  Pauli, Wolfgang Josef. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 118 ( digitized version ).
• E. Life:  Pauli Wolfgang Josef. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 11, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2803-7 , p. 300 f. (Direct links on p. 300 , p. 301 ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Josef Pauli in the catalog of the German National Library