Adolf Beck (physiologist)

Adolf Beck (physiologist)

Adolf Beck (1 January 1863, Cracow – 1942, Lviv) was a Polish Jew, physician of and professor of physiology at the University of Lemberg.

He was born on 1 January 1863, in Cracow, Galicia, into a family of poor parents. During his academic career, Beck supported himself as a private tutor. Upon graduating with distinction from the gymnasium of his native city in 1884, he entered the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. In 1888, while still a medical student, Beck gained the prize of the university by a paper on the excitability of a nerve, afterward published under the title, "O pobudliwości różnych miejsc tego samego nerwu" (On the Excitability of a Nerve at Different Points). In 1890 he received the degree of M.D., and in the same year published the results of his extensive research on electrical processes in the brain. His papers on this subject, "Die Bestimmung der Localisation des Gehirn- und Rückenmarksfunctionen Vermittelst der Electrischen Erscheinungen," 1890, and "Weitere Untersuchungen über die Electrischen Erscheinungen des Hirnrinde der Affen und Hunde," 1891 (in collaboration with Napoleon Cybulski), attracted wide attention in Germany, France, and England, and won for him a prominent position among students of physiology.

In 1889 Beck was appointed assistant in the physiological laboratory of the University of Cracow and he remained in this position until 1894, when he became privatdocent on the presentation of his thesis "Ueber die Physiologie der Reflexes." In the following year he was offered a chair of physiology as associate professor in the newly created medical department of the University of Lemberg and in 1897 was appointed professor in the same institution.

Beck has received many marks of distinction from medical societies in recognition of his scientific investigations. His numerous contributions, published in German and in Polish, belong almost exclusively to the domain of physiology. To the investigations represented by these publications should be added the extensive work of research conducted on similar lines in the Physiological Institute of the University of Lemberg under Beck's immediate supervision.

Beck was a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. He was the first physiologist awarded with the Medal and a title of an Honorary Member of the Polish Physiological Society (Polskie Towarzystwo Fizjologiczne).

He committed suicide in August 1942 in Janowska Nazi camp.