Ernst Leopold Salkowski

Ernst Leopold Salkowski ( born October 11, 1844 in Königsberg, † March 8, 1923 in Berlin) was a German physician and physiological chemist.

Life

After attending the Gymnasium in Königsberg Salkowski studied medicine at the University of Konigsberg, where he was a PhD in 1867 at Ernst von Leyden. His work was entitled De centro Budgii ciliospinali. He completed his education in Vienna, in Tübingen with Felix Hoppe- Seyler and in Heidelberg under Wilhelm Kühne. In 1869 he took a job as an assistant at the Medical Clinic of the University of Königsberg, followed by a job at the Department of Physiology, University of Heidelberg. After Rudolf Virchow proposed it in 1872 as assistant for the chemical laboratory of the Institute of Pathology, Charité, he habilitated there in 1874 and was promoted to associate professor of medicinal chemistry at the Berlin Friedrich- Wilhelms-Universität. From 1880, he became head of the chemical laboratory of Virchow's pathological institute. Salkowski in 1904 was appointed to the Privy Medical Officer and in 1909 to the ordinary honorary professor. Two years after his retirement, he died in Berlin.

Salkowski was married and had two children. His brother Heinrich Otto Salkowski ( born April 13, 1846 † October 30, 1929 ) was also a chemist and professor at the University of Münster.

Work

Salkowski worked mainly in the field of physiological and pathological chemistry and used it well as related subjects such as pharmacology, analytical chemistry and hygiene. He was among the first researchers in the young field of biochemistry. His main interest was the discovery of metabolic intermediates and end products -. He developed numerous detection methods, one of which still find some application. Merck 's reagent directory of 1924 listed, for example, more than 25 detection reactions under the name Salkowski 's reaction. These reactions can be, among other pentoses, glucose, cholesterol, creatinine, or carbon monoxide detected. Today is known mainly cholesterol detection as Salkowski reaction or Salkowski test. This cholesterol crystals are dissolved in chloroform and treated with concentrated sulfuric acid. The chloroform layer turns it blood red and in the sulfuric acid phase is a green fluorescence observed. The red color is due to the Bicholestadiendisulfonsäure. This arises from two cholesterol molecules with elimination of water and subsequent sulfonation.

Early Salkowski examined the excretion products of different animal species to its composition. He recognized, for example, that the feeding of uric acid in dogs leads to an increase in the concentration of allantoin in urine and concluded that uric acid is converted in the body of the dog to allantoin.

Already in 1876 he published a first paper on pathological phenol excretion, which formed in the 1880s the basis for further publications on the products of protein putrefaction and their behavior in the organism. Since he had to suppress the influence of microorganisms for these experiments, he made the hitherto almost unknown antiseptic action of chloroform advantage. In these studies, he worked closely with his brother. Through their work realized in the chemical hydrolysis and the enzymatic cleavage of the same reaction products biomolecules. This knowledge made ​​it possible to simulate processes in the living organism by biochemical methods in the test tube. The in vitro experiment was from then on as a model for in vivo processes or was this even equated.

Salkowski dismissed in 1885 for the first time indole - 3-acetic acid in the fermentation medium of a non-plant organism after. The importance of this compound, which plays an essential role in plant growth and phytohormone from the group of auxins recognized, however, only about 50 years later, the Dutch botanist Frits Went and the Anglo-American plant physiologist Kenneth V. Thimann. Developed by Salkowski color reaction for the detection of indole-3 -acetic acid, are used in the iron chloride and perchloric acid is used until today in Salkowski assay.

The well-known as autolysis process of degradation of cells and tissues by intracellular enzymes described Salkowski also for the first time. He described this process in his publication in 1890 as autodigestion ( self-digestion ).

Together with Jastrowitz he discovered 1892 pentosuria, an abnormality of carbohydrate metabolism, which is characterized by the presence of pentoses in the urine. This anomaly is considered harmless and is not in need of treatment.

Also in the field of food analysis Salkowski made ​​a contribution. By he developed evidence of phytosterols, which occur in vegetable fats, the then frequent adulteration of animal fats by the addition of vegetable fat could be proved.

The protein metabolism, digestion and urine chemistry were life the research priorities of Salkowski. In addition, it was the passing of biochemical knowledge that in 1900 hardly played in the training of doctors a role very important. As a teacher, he tried to convince the budding doctors of the importance of his field. Student of Salkowski example, were the hygienist Martin Hahn and Louis Sigurd Fridericia. Otto Folin found by Salkowski access to work with hospital patients and developed during a research stay in Berlin enthusiasm for his later research priorities, the uric acid. In addition, Paul Grosser in his lab worked for some time.

Salkowski published about 340 publications in scientific journals. His main work includes The doctrine of the urine, a manual, which he wrote together with the pathologists and internists Wilhelm von Leube, and the Practicum of physiological and pathological chemistry, together with a guide to inorganic analysis for medical man.

He was a member of the Swedish and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an Honorary Member of the Italian Academy of Medicine.

Writings

• The doctrine of the urine. A handbook for studies Rende and doctors. Hirschwald, Berlin 1882 ( together with Wilhelm von Leube ).
• Practicum of physiological and pathological chemistry, together with a guide to inorganic analysis for medical man. Hirschwald, Berlin 1893.