Otto Frank (physiologist)

Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Otto Frank ( born June 21, 1865 in United -Umstadt, † November 12, 1944 in Munich) was a German physician and cardiovascular physiologist.

Family

Otto Frank was the son of George Frank (1838-1907), MD, and a general practitioner, and Mathilde Lindenborn ( 1841-1906 ). Otto Frank married Theres Schuster from Munich.

Education and work

Frank studied from 1884 to 1889 in Munich and Kiel Medicine (approval in Munich 1889). The years 1889 to 1891, he devoted his education in mathematics, chemistry, physics, anatomy and zoology in Heidelberg, Glasgow, Munich and Strasbourg. Then he worked until 1894 as an assistant at the then world- famous physiological institute of Carl Ludwig in Leipzig, where in 1892 he completed his studies with a doctorate.

Subsequently, Frank worked as an assistant in the Physiological Institute of Carl von Voit in Munich. In 1894 he habilitated with a groundbreaking work on the heart muscle function and received in 1902 the extraordinary professorship. From 1905 to 1908 he took a professorship at Giessen and then returned again to Munich to become the successor of Carl von Voit ( Ordinariate and management of the physiological institute). Until the forced retirement by the Nazi regime in 1934, Frank remained in this professional position.

Performance

In his habilitation thesis Frank translating the principles of isometric and isotonic contractions of skeletal muscle to dynamic myocardial function. This was followed by studies on the moykardiale resting tension curve or isometric, isotonic and support maxima curves ( Frank -Starling mechanism ). Primary works for the accurate calculation of cardiac work followed.

Starting developed from the critical examination manometric measurement methods Frank accurate and useful for physiological measurements manometer and recording instruments ( Frank - capsule optical Spiegelsphygmograph ). In addition, he created the theory of elastic vessel properties, the first coherent theory of pulse wave and provided a method for determining the stroke volume of the heart in humans and animals, which was based on the wave theory and the windkessel theory. Related originated a theory of arterial blood pressure, reference was made ​​to the dependencies of pulse pressure, stroke volume and the total elastic vascular resistance. Frank also studied the vibration characteristics of the sound- conducting apparatus in the ear and dealt with the thermodynamics of the muscle.

In 1914 he published also a critical study of " The so-called thinking animals," in which he made detailed proposals of how to expose with the help of carefully conducted tests, the then much discussed, alleged mathematical abilities of animals as self-deception of their owners.

Works

  • On the dynamics of cardiac muscle. In: Journal of Biology. Volume 32, 1895, p 370
  • The basic shape of the arterial pulse. In: Journal of Biology. Volume 37, 1899, p 483
  • Criticism of the elastic pressure gauge. 1903
  • The registration of the pulse through a Spiegelsphygmographen. In: Münchener Medizinische Wochenschrift. Volume 42, 1903, pp. 1809-1810
Physiology Frank–Starling law of the heart Neue Deutsche Biographie Integrated Authority File
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