Max Rubner

Max Rubner ( born June 2, 1854 in Munich, † April 27, 1932 in Berlin) was a German physician, physiologist and hygienist.

Family

His father Johann Nepomuk Rubner was a locksmith and hardware dealers. His mother, Barbara, born Duscher was from Augsburg. Rubner was married to Helen, daughter of the royal upper building advice Karl Ritter von Leimbach from Munich, who died in 1915. The marriage produced two daughters and two sons were born. Among his five grandchildren Johanna Quandt heard.

Education and work

Rubner Max attended the grammar school in Munich and Sunday lectures of an industrial school. At 15, he already had a microscope and chemical apparatus. After graduation he studied medicine from 1873 to 1877 at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich under Adolf von Baeyer in whose chemical laboratory he worked, and the physiologist Carl von Voit. It was in 1878 his doctorate with a thesis on the use of nutrients in the intestine. Until 1880 he remained unpaid assistant to Voit. Here Rubner developed a new approach to the study of bioenergetics of metabolism. 1880/81 was followed by an academic year at the Physiological Institute of Carl Ludwig in Leipzig, where he continued his studies for the determination of nutrient energy levels in the body. In 1883 he qualified as a professor in Munich with a thesis on the calorific values ​​of nutrients in physiology and presented during the following two years, his completely new concepts of energy conservation, the validity of the energy conservation law in the animal organism, the isodynamic relationship of nutrient calorific values ​​and the energy loss by radiation and evaporation surface in accordance with the law before. On the calorimetric determination Rubner of usable energy from the body of essential nutrients goes back: carbohydrates or protein corresponding to each 4.1 kcal / g ( 17165.9 J ) and fat 9.3 kcal / g ( 38936.2 J ), where can replace these nutrients energetically against each other ( " Isodynamie ").

1885 Rubner took a call to the chair of hygiene and state Pharmacology at the University of Marburg, first as an associate, then in 1887 as a full professor. He was convinced at this time believe that hygiene is simply applied physiology. In Marburg he led work on thermoregulation, body surface area and metabolism by ( "Biological Laws"). 1891 took over Rubner as the successor of Robert Koch Professor of Hygiene at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin. 1905, a large new Institute was built for him and in 1909 he moved to the chair of physiology as the successor of Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann. From 1913 to 1926 Rubner was also director of the co-founders of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Occupational Physiology in Berlin. ( Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology today ) in Dortmund and the Department of Occupational Medicine at the Institute of Occupational Medicine of the Charité in Berlin: From this foundation several academic institutions emerged the Institute for Employment Research. Here numerous studies on nutrition physiology and metabolism, including hygienic effects of clothing, climate, air, water, housing and temperature, to questions of nutrition for entire populations emerged. As part of calorimetric research, he described the specific dynamic action of organic nutrients and the surface law ( fundamental predictability of the energy expenditure of an organism according to its body surface area).

Services

Rubner in 1894 had established the validity of the principle of conservation of energy of living organisms and 1896 to 1903, he clarified the influence of cold on the metabolism and heat (heat conduction, radiation, evaporation) to energy losses. In addition, he worked for years with the calorie requirements of certain professions. Rubner, the terms " protein min " ( minimum daily protein intake to maintain the balance between nitrogen intake and excretion ) and " wear rate " (daily nitrogen loss without protein intake line). 100 g of protein per day Rubner defined as " hygienic protein min " for adults ( 1914). According Rubner life is a function of energy consumption.

During the First World War Rubner was active in the field of national food, investigated issues changing dietary habits by increasing urbanization and social change as well as the consequences of the Allied blockade ( famine ) on the civilian population (1918). During his last years he expanded, results of research on nutrition and metabolism starting his subject to comprehensive human problems: global food, survival, hunger, malnutrition, disease, poor living and health conditions.

Rubner was of notorious reticence and possessed a sense of sarcastic humor. As a researcher, he was meticulous and inventive, designed as calorimetric units themselves Rubner can be regarded as the founder of scientific nutritional physiology and physico-chemical, experimental hygiene as well as the scientific work physiology, occupational medicine and applied physiology.

Honors

Awards

  • The Max Rubner- Institute (MRI ), Federal Research Institute for Nutrition and Food, is named after the physiologist.
  • The Max Rubner price of the Charité Foundation, benefactor is his granddaughter Johanna Quandt is an Innovation Award for modifiers at the Charité and valued at up to 100,000 euros.
  • The Max Rubner- Award of the German Society for Nutrition is awarded every four years.

Works

  • About the utilization of some food in the intestinal tract of man. Diss med Munich 1880
  • The representative values ​​of the principal organic food substances in the animal body. Journal of Biology 19 (1883 ), pp. 313-396
  • Biological laws. Annual reports of the University of Marburg in 1887
  • Textbook of hygiene. Vienna 1888-1890 (1891 /92 and 1899/1900, 1907)
  • A calorimeter for physiological and hygienic purposes. Journal of Biology 25: 400-426, 1889
  • The source of animal heat. Journal of Biology 30 (1894 ), pp. 73-142
  • The laws of energy consumption in the diet. Leipzig 1902
  • The problem of life and its relation to growth and nutrition. Munich 1908
  • Food and Nutrition customer. Stuttgart 1908
  • People's nutritional issues. Leipzig 1908
  • Matter and force in the economy of nature. Leipzig 1909
  • The calorimetry. In: Handbook of Physiological Methods, Volume One: General methodology. Protists, invertebrates, physical chemistry. Material and energy exchange, Third Division: Metabolism - Respirationslehre - Calorimetry, ed. v. Robert Tigerstedt, 150-228. Hirzel, Leipzig 1911
  • Handbook of hygiene. (Ed., 9 vols ). Leipzig 1911-1927
  • The nutritional physiology of yeast in alcoholic fermentation. Leipzig 1913
  • Using modern diets. Munich 1914
  • Constitution, and diet. Berlin 1930
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