Sigmund Exner

Siegmund Exner, 1917 Siegmund Exner Knights of Ewarten, ( born April 5, 1846 in Vienna, † February 5, 1926 ) was an important Austrian physiologist. Other name headings are Sigmund Exner, Sigmund Exner Ewarten and Sigmund Exner Knights of Ewarten.

Biography

Siegmund Exner was born in 1846 as the fourth of five children (apart from a sixth died young ) professor of philosophy and education reformer Franz Serafin Exner and Charlotte Dusensy in Vienna. His brothers Adolf Exner, Karl Exner and Franz Serafin Exner - were, like himself, later famous professors, his sister Marie Exner, married to Anton von Frisch. Marie fresh Exner chatted with his brother Adolf Exner a long friendship with Gottfried Keller, besides also with Marie von Ebner- Eschenbach and Ricarda Huch. Her son, Karl von Frisch was a zoologist and Nobel Prize winner for medicine.

Siegmund Exner visited the Academic Gymnasium, studied medicine in 1865, first in Vienna under Ernst Brücke ( 1819-1892 ), from 1867 to 1868 in Heidelberg under Hermann von Helmholtz.

In 1870 he received his doctorate of medicine and was first assistant lecturer in 1871 and 1875 associate professor at the Physiological Institute in Vienna. On the Physiological Institute of Franz bridge Sigmund Freud Sigmund Exner and met the neurologist Josef Breuer, which should greatly affect him. In 1884, Exner expect was elected a member of the Leopoldina.

In 1891 he was appointed as successor to bridge the chair of physiology at the University of Vienna. In 1897 he was appointed k.u.k Councilor. The Chairman of the Institute of Physiology of the University of Vienna he held until 1917. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig and Athens.

From 1910 he was president of the Society of Physicians in Vienna. In 1917 he was knighted also because of his services to the medical / physiological teaching knighted by Exner Ewarten.

From the marriage of Siegmund Exner with Emilie geb.von Winiwarter (1847-1909) two children, 1875, the surgeon and university professor Alfred von Exner - Ewarten and 1876 the meteorologist and professor Felix Maria von Exner - Ewarten went out.

Research

Siegmund Exner is considered one of the fathers of comparative physiology, brain research and psychology of perception from a physiological point of view. One of his main areas of work was sensory physiology with studies of olfactory organs on the sensitivity of the retina regeneration, through color contrast and about seeing the compound eyes. Of particular importance were his work on the localization of behavioral functions in the brain, specifically his work on the functional architecture of the visual cortex.

In addition, studies find the organization of associative connections in the brain. In 1894 published a "Draft for a physiological explanation of mental phenomena " with the concepts of a neural network and local learning rules in parallel processing networks of nerves. He concluded early on that thought and consciousness must be functions of the network architecture of the brain. As remarkable and innovative today can be considered that he, already formulated in a time in which the workings of the brain essentially was still in the dark in his publications and local learning rules in parallel processing networks of nerves.

Also the cultural and artistic horizons Vienna influenced Exner's work. In addition to a study of the iconographic representability floating figures Siegmund Exner counted together with Franz Josef Pommer Scheirl and one of the initiators and founders of the Phonogram Archive of the Academy of Sciences.

The reissue of 2004 " About the hovering birds of prey " combines the wonder of the physiologists about the wonders of nature and the art of man.

Writings (selection )

  • Exner, Sigmund (1878 ): Guidelines on microscopic examination of animal tissue. Second, revised edition. Leipzig 1878.
  • Exner, Sigmund and Conrad Eckhard (1881 ): Studies on the localization of functions in the cerebral cortex of man. Vienna: W. Braumüller
  • Exner, Sigmund (1882 ): The physiology of flying and floating in the visual arts: Lecture held at the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry on January 5, 1882 Vienna. Braumüller
  • Exner, Sigmund and Conrad Eckhard (1891 ): The physiology of facettirten eyes of crustaceans and insects. Leipzig: F. Deuticke
  • Exner, Sigmund (1894 ): Design for a physiological explanation of the psychological phenomena of Dr. Sigmund Exner: Part I.. Leipzig Vienna: F. Deuticke
  • Exner, Sigmund (1906 ): About the hovering birds of prey. In: Archives for the entire physiology of humans and animals, 114: 109-142 (Reprint 2004, ISBN 3-936755-75-2 )

Swell

  • O. Breidbach: comments on Exner's physiology of flying and floating. In: O. Breidbach: nature of aesthetics - aesthetics of nature. Volume 1, pp. 221-223. Springer Verlag Wien, 1997
  • Deborah R. Coen: Vienna in the age of uncertainty: science, liberalism, and private life. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2007, ISBN 978-0-226-11172-8
  • Renée Gicklhorn: Sigmund Exner Knights of Ewarten (since 1917). In: New German Biography ( NDB ). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0, pp. 701 f ( digitized ).

Eponyms (obsolete - before associated with Siegmund Exner )

  • Exnersche body - Histology: small fluid-filled and eosinophilic membrane material spaces
  • Exner cal area - circumscribed brain region above the Broca's area and anterior to the precentral motor cortex
  • Exner shear nerve - the nerve from the pharyngeal plexus to Krikothyroid membrane extending
  • Exner shear plexus - a plexus superficial tangential fibers in the molecular layer of the cortex Gehri
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