Robert Remak

Robert Remak ( born July 26, 1815 in Poznan, † August 29 1865 in Bad Kissingen ) was a German - Jewish physician, zoologist, physiologist and neurologist.

Remak is considered the founder of modern embryology. He described 1842, the three germ layers ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. He realized before Rudolf Virchow and Theodor Schwann cell nucleus as the basic structure of cell division. Remak described the basic structure of the axon and the Remak ganglion. Later he worked in the field of galvanotherapy.

Family

Robert Remak was the son of the person established in Poses Jewish businessman Salomon Meyer Remak and his wife Friederike Caro. He had an older sister and two younger brothers. On July 8, 1848 he married Feodore Meyer ( 1828-1863 ), the daughter of the banker Eli Joachim Meyer. His son was the neurologist Ernst Julius Remak.

Medical studies in Berlin

Remak attended the Friedrich- Wilhelms -Gymnasium ( Posen) and put 1833 his Abitur. Then Remak began his medical studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, Berlin. It is unclear why Remak went to medical school to Berlin and not to Vienna, Prague or another city, where Jews were allowed to study. Since 1730 the Jewish citizens of access to the Collegium Medico - chirurgicum was permitted, ie 82 years before the Prussian Jews Edict of 1812, which also provided qualified Jews in Germany have free access to university teaching careers in prospect. The emancipation edict was the formal condition for the equality of Jews with Christians in Prussia. Background was the desire of the Prussian governance that " the excellent talent in every level and ratio of the civil and military service should be open ."

The " qualification" for inclusion in the civil service, however, was not specified in the emancipation edict, so that the Prussian administration recorded over the years, even built evidence of the qualifications required in the approval catalogs of individual offices, which were then more and more concretized and thus partly restrictive - could be lived by the administration at will - without the involvement of higher-level control bodies. Only ten years later, after the establishment of the Emancipation Edict, on August 18, 1822, a royal decree forbade Jewish citizens' access to teaching careers entirely.

Within these ten years of attempted equality between Jews and Christians are not more than three Jewish scientists had habilitated and taught at universities in Prussia. Possible reasons for this change of attitude in the Prussian governance, Jews now but again access to teaching careers at the University - but not access to the Academy of Sciences - to deny the concerns of the Christian ultra-conservative management structures of the Royal Ministry of Culture may have been, the risk of a saw in the emerging liberalism of the Jewish educated middle class. With this historical background, the restriction of a future academic career Remak started in the winter semester 1833/34 his medical studies at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, in which at that time 2,561 students were enrolled.

The fees for Remaks lectures in the amount of 87 thalers and 15 pennies have been deferred to him, which is documented on the leaving certificate of Remak from the year 1838. During his medical studies to Remak was very interested in innovative study and research methods, as can be seen at work on the microscopical structure of the nervous system, which he published independently at the age of 21 years.

During his studies Remak described, inter alia, for the first time, the " primitive band", the axon as part of conducting nerve fibers.

Remaks scientific interest, talent and technical skills were recognized early by his university professors who are willing to put him microscope Präparierwerkzeug and study material for his student research work, and actively promoted it later and sponsored to attack the government-sponsored faculty and him suspicious compared with set administration of the Ministry of Culture of the Prussian government. Among the significant and long -term supporters Remaks included, inter alia, the anatomist and pathologist Johannes Peter Müller and the Berlin clinic director Johann Lukas Schönlein. Both allowed his research in the field of embryology.

1838 Robert Remak obtained his Ph.D. work Observationes anatomicae et microscopicae de systematis nervosi structura. On 11 May 1839, he was - limited to the province of Posen - approved in November he presented a public oath for the office as a physician in the province of Posen from.

Embryology and Cell Pathology

After completing his studies Remak was employed in 1842 in Berlin for several years in Schönleins clinic fee (200 dollars per year ), where he could pursue further research on the microscopic representation of cell development, embryogenesis and cell pathology. During this time he had close contact with the former head of the University Polyclinic Moritz Heinrich Romberg, were presented by the numerous patients to him for treatment. Tissue samples for his studies to the study of embryogenesis and cell pathology he received from Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach and the Head of the Department of Obstetrics Josef Hermann Schmidt and numerous colleagues from Berlin's private practices, who opposed the work Remaks very open-minded.

Based on this work identified Remak the three germ layers ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm as a facility for the training of the individual organ systems. This discovery is the basis for modern embryology Remaks.

Remak also was instrumental in the discovery of the cytoskeleton. In fresh preparations of nerve cells of the crayfish he could see hundreds of " primitive bands ", which he published as drawings in his publications on this subject for the first time. Perhaps because he warned that these structures are so fragile that they " disintegrate into small granules " after a few minutes, his discovery was received with skepticism. Ultimately, however, he observed probably the most dynamic cytoskelettaler structures. Today it is known that even for example dissociate microtubules in intact cells by lowering the temperature. His observations were the beginning of a protracted debate over decades about the existence or non-existence of such fibrillar structures in nerve cells. 40 years later Angered by this dispute took Sigmund Freud in one of his scientific work on the topic. Even Freud could make filaments in nerve cells.

Robert Remak had also pioneering contribution to the knowledge of the growth of tissue or cell proliferation. The pathologist Friedrich Günzburg from Breslau and Remak reported in papers in 1842 and 1852, indicates that tumor and embryonic cells multiply by division of the nucleus, and not, as hitherto by Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow represented in the Cytoblastemtheorie opinion, by proliferation and sequestration of the cytoplasm, and then only to synthesize the cell nucleus using the cytoplasm. In science, however, Günzburg and Remaks early findings about the hazards arising from the core cell division alone were attributed to Virchow on the basis of his essay on the origin of cell proliferation, in which the latter forgot to mention the time older performances of his colleagues. This provision of his scientific work and ultimately favor of Rudolf Virchow in the award of the Chair on pathological anatomy and therapy at the University of Berlin in 1856 could have led to some bitterness in Remak who showed up in a strained relationship with Virchow. The same also could not just advantageous faculty opinion Virchow be seen from 1858 through the galvanotherapeutischen attempts Remaks with detoxification, but just this galvanotherapeutischen basic experiments have her later, beneficial clinical, realization in the iontophoresis and the Stanger found.

Galvanotherapy

Rudolf Virchow was awarded by the Medical Faculty of the Charité Berlin, the newly created full professorship, to which also Remak had tried. This turned subsequently to the then new field of galvanotherapy. The galvanotherapy found in Europe their way into the medical treatment of diseases with the invention of the voltaic element by the Italian Alessandro Volta, could produce by zinc-copper plates were immersed in a conducting dielectric, a constant direct current Voltaic pile. Systematic studies of the effect of the galvanic current on healthy and sick people were published in Paris by the revolutionary Jean -Paul Marat, and in London by John Wesley, who in 1780 published a book on the clinical application of galvanotherapy. The doctor Golding Bird established at Guy's Hospital in London, the first department to galvanotherapy who was involved in the London Academy of Sciences.

In the early days of galvanotherapy in 1800 the creation of a reproducible electrical current for therapeutic purposes with uniform thickness was difficult. The doctor Franz Heinrich Martens realized that a reproducible, galvanic current for therapeutic use was essential, so he stood in contrast to Bischoff (Jena) and Grapengiesser (Berlin). In the Galvani - voltaic pile described by him there were repeated by oxidation processes to reduce the galvanic currents that made ​​it difficult to reproduce the results of treatment.

Inspired by these first promising, galvanotherapeutischen attempts Remak was trying to establish itself at the Charité this novel form of therapy. In his efforts he was supported by various scientists: The physicist Johann Georg Halske and Werner von Siemens presented the Remak to build his galvanotherapeutischen device, the Galvanoskop, necessary equipment and materials available. They were also assisted him in assembling and operating this device. Remak used the findings Martens on the Voltaic pile and developed his Galvanoskop, which resulted by Galvanisometer ( ammeter ) and improved electrodes the desired reproducible current flow. Remaks Galvanoskop consisted of DC source, ampere and the coulomb meter, electrode material and dielectric into which dipped the treated body part of the patient. At the same time, as Remak published his work on the galvanotherapy 1858, published the Boston doctors William F. Channing and AC Each Garrat a comprehensive work on the basics, application and therapeutic effect of galvanic direct current, which was based on their own experiences that they had won in the last twenty years of her work. Again, extensive lists of indications, see the application of the galvanic direct current.

Broad support for his galvanotherapy Remak was established in the Berlin medical profession, which he referred many patients for treatment. The Berlin ophthalmologist Albrecht von Graefe hoped that the application of Galvanoskop in his patients new treatment options of ocular nystagmus Also Moritz Heinrich Romberg, Head of the former Polyclinic of the Medical Faculty, Berlin, showed great interest in Remaks attempts to galvanotherapy in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as migraine, paralysis, paralysis agitans ( Parkinson 's disease) and tabes dorsal (neuro - syphilis). In his work we Remak sat apart with the therapeutic indication galvanotherapy, based on its more than 1,000 therapeutic applications. Comparing the indications Remaks with those on the application of iontophoresis, or the Stanger, so here show great similarities, such as the application in the prevention and treatment of inflammation, skin diseases and rheumatism, to the already Martens for his Voltaic pile has pointed out. For all prepared by Remak indication detail scientifically based explanations in the human use and examples are given of treatments in his work. Much has Remak as requested by Martens medical expertise in the application of galvanotherapy in humans. In his research galvanotherapeutischen Remak worked closely with Berlin private and public sector doctors who zuwiesen him to treat patients in his private practice. Numerous visits to Vienna, in Paris (with Guillaume- Benjamin Duchenne ) and in London, where he lectured his galvanotherapeutischen work before the Academy of Sciences, put the reference here to the international environment in the galvanotherapy.

As part of this from 1856 until his death in 1864 intensive research carried out Remak provided the first scientific explanation for the " catalytic effects of the constant galvanic current " in the therapeutic use in humans. He described the direct action of the electric current to " inflammatory conditions " of many acute and chronic diseases related to the indirect effect of the electromagnetic field, which could not be explained discovered by Jean Louis Jallabert and Marat in Paris, however. Remak described under the application of a Galvanoskop excitation of the entire metabolism with increased removal of extracellular fluid from diseased tissue via the lymphatic system. This process is called Remak as " endosmotic juices flow " caused by the active ion effect. It is this galvanotherapeutische active ion effect and the achieved therapeutic outcome were described by Remak and chronic rheumatic inflammation with joint edema advantageous. Although Martens had knowledge that it comes under the application of the galvanic current at the anode to a yellowing of litmus paper ( Anodenoxydation with release of hydrogen ions) and at the cathode to a blue color by reduction and release of hydroxide ions.

The therapeutic effects, however, this electrochemical active ion effect effects with release of activated metal ions in the dielectric used by Remak had not been scientifically studied because of the novelty of this method at the time and learned first statements by Remak. His 461 -page book on the galvanotherapy covers almost all questions from this new form of therapy. It is understandable that Remak is not met with his then very progressive approach of holistic therapy without consideration of individual organ systems in most members of the Medical Faculty of the Charité in an understandable response. The university opinion of the Charité, whose inner circle Remak felt his life attracted more represented the views of the individual, related to individual diseased organs therapy, which was in the form of the novel galvanotherapy unlike Remaks holistic approach to therapy. Perhaps for this reason, was repeatedly put forward his request for a separate galvanotherapeutisch aligned infirmary at the Charité, similar to the model of the Guy's Hospital in London, refused. Support for its holistic approach galvanotherapeutischen with active ion effect effect was rather Remak in his European colleagues in Paris and London. The negative attitude of the conservative medical circles of the Charité, Berlin opposite the new galvanotherapy may be understood from the conflict of interest between the classical and medical procedures of the time and the rapidly developing technological advances in the theory of electricity.

Habilitation

With the completion of his medical studies in 1838 efforts are in Remak determine to get in the medical faculty of the University of Berlin a fixed professorship and thus recognition, regular salary, promotion of research, testing skills and social security for its hitherto unusually successful scientific work. Remaks efforts in this direction came at a time of the emancipation of the Jewish educated middle class, which lasted until the revolution of 1848. Due to formal legal discrimination, it was citizens of Jewish faith 1822-1848 not permitted, a government teacher, such as taking a professorship.

Remak refused for that time with his liberal- revolutionary ideas, convert only reason to Christianity so as to gain an advantage. Remak said: " Also, I have to get always the greatest repugnance to the idea of change of religion Aeussere benefits."

While admission to the Academy of Sciences mainly depended on scientific achievements, the appointment of a professor at the state-funded universities was generally of political conduct and secondarily by the scientific qualification dependent. The Conservative- Christian administrators of the Prussian Ministry of Culture, who were responsible for the appointment of the state-funded professors and teachers, considered neoliberalism of the Jewish educated middle class with deep suspicion. In particular can be mentioned here Raumer (1805-1859), the State Christian Men's Culture Minister Karl vom Stein to the Old Stone (1770-1840), his successor Johann Albrecht Friedrich Eichhorn and erzchristlich - antijudaisch aligned Standing Karl Otto, the over many years Habilitation Remaks by specifying formal legal doubts as to its liberal worldview delayed. So the demands Remaks and his colleagues had to go to the assistance of the public may be met with great suspicion and doubt as to the loyalty to the state Remaks at promotions and physician examinations or the award of academic positions at the University and scholarships and research grants under the Culture Ministers.

Such, very legitimate demands for public participation in medical examinations and faculty meetings were at the time of Rudolf Virchow, as now, in detail Surgeons of the Federal Republic of Germany, namely the Bavarian Chamber of Physicians, Munich, rejected with the argument that it was only " formalities " and their implementation is a " waste of time " was. The more advanced arguments were at that time from a historical perspective in Remak as still reason for accusations of manipulation and fraud in the admission to the specialist doctor or a professorship.

The naturalist Alexander von Humboldt supported Remak repeatedly against the professional constraints of his opponents in the Prussian Ministry of Culture. Only the written instruction of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, dated March 8, 1847, at the Ministry of Education paved the way for formal legal Remaks university career. Remaks long -time supporter, Alexander von Humboldt, had appealed to the king to ask for their intervention in the Habilitation of Remak. The high recognition, which had for the medical faculty of the Friedrich -Wilhelms- University of Berlin, the scientific performance Remaks is to see to it that Remak was the Venia Legendi awarded as one of the very few post-doctoral unanimous faculty decision to go without habilitation examination. He had only his written in the Latin language habilitation inaugural speech on the theme. " De exudatione materiae fibrinosae in membranis mucosis et glandulis quibusdam occurrente " hold.

Virchow recommended Remak with a benevolent letter o for a professorship at the University of Krakow, to which he had been invited by the Dean of the Medical University of Cracow, Casimir Fryderik Skobel. However Remak rejected this point with the written in Polish pleading of 28 November 1850 Skobel on the ground to be able to hold any academic lecture in Polish.

However, the achieved as a student at a young age scientific achievements in Remaks colleagues could have caused not only admiration but also envy. Rightly Remak was disturbed by Virchow's essay on the nuclear division without him and Günzburg were mentioned in this famous work as co-founder, though Günzburg and Remak had pointed proven years ago Virchow publication on the nuclear division as a reason for tissue augmentation. The preference was then Virchow as a full professor at the Charité in 1856 could be met with incomprehension Remak, especially since here no antijudaische rejection was seen. Remaks turn to galvanotherapy as a novel medical discipline removed him from his professorial colleagues, the more concerned with tangible issues from pathology, surgery and internal medicine. This distancing was also a physical distance from the academic life at the Charité by outsourcing its galvanotherapeutischen active ion studies in his private practice since it does not own infirmary was approved for experimental purposes in the Charité.

Writings (selection )

• Preliminary Mittheilungen microscopischer observations about the internal structure of Cerebrospinalnerven and the development of their form elements. In: Archives of Anatomy, Physiology and scientific medicine. 1836, pp. 145-161.
• Observationes anatomicae et microscopicae de systematis nervosi structura. Dissertation Berlin, 1838. (Google Books)
• As to the physiological significance of the organic nervous system, especially after anatomical facts. In: Monthly Journal of Medicine, Ophthalmology and Surgery 3, 1840, pp. 225-265.
• About the contents of the primitive nerve tubes. In: Archives of Anatomy, Physiology and scientific medicine. 1843, pp. 197-201.
• Neurological Explanations. In: Archives of Anatomy, Physiology and Scientific Medicine, 1844, pp. 463-472. .
• De exudatione materiae fibrinosae in membranis mucosis et glandulis quibusdam occurrente. Habilitation thesis, Berlin, 1847.
• About extracellular formation of animal cells and the proliferation thereof by division In: . Archive for anatomy, physiology and scientific medicine 1852, pp. 47-57.
• Galvanotherapy of muscle and nerve diseases. Publisher of August Hirschwald, Berlin, 1858.