Prof. Oskar Minkowski

Transcription

1 Magyar Imre EASD Clinical Postgraduate Course Budapest, Hungary, November Prof. Oskar Minkowski Presented by Dr. Viktor Jörgens

2 The European Association for the Study of Diabetes awards the most prestigious prize to a young European scientist. The prize is named after Oskar Minkowski.

3 Minkowski 49th Winner 2014 Anna Gloyn

4 Oskar Minkowski Born in Alexoten (Kaunas) in Lithuania

5 1866

6 Königsberg From 1866 Oskar Minkowski lived in Königsberg. He attended the Gymnasium and did most of his medical studies there. His medical thesis was accepted in 1881.

7 I found a first class employee in Oskar Minkowski. He is a man of outstanding intelligence. His independent and clear way of thinking and his mental mobility based on very speedy and precise perceptions gave him a perfect basis for scientific research B. Naunyn: Gedanken, Erinnerungen und Meinungen, Bergmann Verlag München 1925 Prof. B. Naunyn Dorpat , Bern Königsberg Straßburg

8 1888: Naunyn and Minkowski move from Königsberg to Straßburg

9 Prof. Adolf Kußmaul left Strassburg in the morning of

10 Naunyn arrived in this house at Elisabethstr. 8 in the afternoon of The house was very near the hospital

11 University Hospital Strassburg

12 Oskar Minkowski described his discovery in a personal letter, In April 1889, I went to the biochemical institute to read some publications and I met von Mering. He had recently recommended Lipantin, an oil preparation with 6% of free fatty acids as a replacement of cod-liver oil because he thought that the free fatty acids may be the most important substance acting in cod-liver oil. Von Mering asked me, Do you use Lipantin frequently in your clinic? Oh no, I replied. We give only good butter to our patients and not rancid oil. Don t laugh, he said. Healthy people must metabolise lipids and if the pancreas doesn t work correctly, we have to give metabolised lipids to them.

13 Did you prove this in an experiment? I asked him. This conversation was followed by a discussion on how to do the experiment and finally, I mentioned that this question could be studied in a dog. This is not so easy, continued von Mering, since the enzymes of the pancreas will still go into the intestines when you perform a ligation of the ductus pancreaticus. What I mean is we should take out the whole pancreas! This operation is impossible.

14 Since I did not know that Claude Bernard had published that no animal survives total pancreatectomy, and due to my young age, overestimating my capacities as a surgeon, I exclaimed: There are no impossible operations. Give me a dog and I will take out his pancreas today. Von Mehring replied, Ok, I have a dog and you can try it. The same day, I performed a pancreatectomy in a dog in Naunyn s laboratory with the assistance of von Mehring. The animal survived and seemed to be doing well in the beginning.

15 The day after the operation, von Mehring had to travel to Colmar. He had to stay for one week. In the meantime the dog, which was clean before, started to urinate more and more frequently in the laboratory. I reprimanded the laboratory assistant for not walking the dog frequently enough, but he replied, I do walk him frequently but this animal is funny. As soon as it returns, it urinates again even immediately after having done it outside. This observation led me to examine the urine of the dog.

16 Aula of the University of Strassbourg Do you know that all pancreatectomised dogs become diabetic?

17 First International Congress of Physiology Basel Minkowski and von Mering present a dog with diabetes.

18 Augusta Hospital Cologne Minkowski worked here from to

19 Oskar Minkowski in the University of Greifswald Chair of Internal Medicine from to

20 Wrozlaw (Breslau): the auditorium for Internal Medicine in front Prof. Bo Feldt-Rasmussen

21 1909 Minkowski studied Zülzer s extract and missed the Nobel Prize Forschbach, J (1909): Versuche zur Behandlung des Diabetes mellitus mit dem Zuelzerschen Pankreashormon (aus der Medizinischen Klinik der Universität Breslau, Direktor Geh. Med. Rath. Prof. Dr. Minkowski, Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift 25:

22 Oskar Minkowski street in Wrozlaw (formerly Breslau)

23 Prof. Oskar Minkowski was Chairman of the German Society of Internal Medicine and of the Annual German Congress of Internal Medicine in He chaired the first German Insulin Committee. And he examined this patient who was??

24 Lenin! Prof. Minkowski was sent to Moscow by the Germany government to examine Lenin but he could not help him anymore.

25 Sanatorium in Fürstenberg, where Oskar Minkowski died

26 Tomb of Oskar and Hermann Minkowski Oskar Minkowski s widow had to leave Germany due to the Nazi terror against Jewish people. The Noble Prize winner Charles Best helped her to pay for the ticket. The Noble Prize winner Bernardo Houssay assisted her with immigration formalities to Argentina thus saving her life. Tomb

27 Prof. Rudolf Minkowski born in Strassburg , Professor of physics in Hamburg, Immigration Worked at the Mt. Wilson and Mt. Palomar Observatories and in Berkeley. He introduced spectroscopy into astronomy. He had a daughter and a son.

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29 Then the crime of 1933 put an ignominious end to a great tradition and blighted a prolific growth. In the soil thus blasted let us hope that some living roots still survive to yield with time a new growth. Magnus-Levy worked under Naunyn in Strassburg, from 1940 Professor in Yale (USA) Adolf Magnus-Levy ( ): The Heroic Age of German Medicine, reprint personally dedicated to the sister of Oskar Minkowski

30 In a time which may not be so far ahead as we think, Europe will form one big republic and the only rivalry between the states will consist of the struggle to develop and to perfect ad libitum agriculture, trade, science, art and literature Apollinaire Bouchardat