German physiologists

Rudolf Magnus (2 September 1873, Brunswick – 25 July 1927, Pontresina) was a German pharmacologist and physiologist. He studied medicine, specialising in pharmacology, in Heidelberg, where he became associate professor of pharmacology in 1904. In 1908 he became the first professor of pharmacology in Utrecht, where he spent the rest of his working life.
Had he lived, he likely would have been awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on animal reflexes. The authors of Nobel, the Man and his Prizes by H.Schück et al., edited by the Nobel Foundation (2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1962, p. 311) wrote of Magnus and his co-worker De Kleyn: ‘The examiner [1927] declared that the work done by Magnus and De Kleyn clearly deserved a prize, and the prospects for an award seemed most favourable when Magnus unexpectedly died.’ For his life and work see, Rudolf Magnus, Physiologist and Pharmacologist: A Biography (2002, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) by his son, Dr.Otto Magnus.
Magnus had five children, Karl (1903-1989) lung specialist; Margarete (Gretl)(1905-1968)who worked as his secretary and translator; Dorothea who died aged 11; Erica (1909-1991) architect; and Otto (1913-2014) neurologist.
Magnus is most widely known for his work as a physiologist. His book Körperstellung ("Posture")., a study of functional neurology, is his best known work.

Nathan Zuntz (6 October 1847, in Bonn – 22 March 1920, in Berlin) was a German physiologist born in Bonn. He was a pioneer of modern altitude physiology and aviation medicine.

Siegmund Mayer (December 27, 1842 – September, 1910) was a German physiologist and histologist.
Mayer was born in Bechtheim in Rhenish Hesse. He studied at the Universities of Heidelberg, Giessen and Tübingen, where in 1865 he obtained his doctorate. He subsequently worked with Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821–1894) in Heidelberg, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1816–1895) and Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (1839–1884) in Leipzig, and with Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke (1819–1892) in Vienna.
In 1869 he was habilitated for physiology at Vienna, and during the next year became Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering's assistant in Prague. In 1872 he became an associate professor and in 1887 a full professor. From 1880 he was director at the newly founded institute of histology.
Mayer made several important contributions particularly concerning the physiology of the heart and vessels, respiration and intestines. He was one of the first to describe chromaffin cells in the sympathetic nerve, and with Ewald Hering and Ludwig Traube, his name is associated with "Traube–Hering–Mayer waves", a phenomenon that deals with rhythmic variations in arterial blood pressure.In addition to his scholarly papers published in scientific journals, he made contributions to Salomon Stricker's Handbuch der Lehre von den Geweben des Menschen und der Thiere (1872) and to Ludimar Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologie (1879). He was also author of Histologisches Taschenbuch (1887).
Mayer died September 1910 in Prague.

Viktor Freiherr von Weizsäcker (21 April 1886, in Stuttgart – 9 January 1957, in Heidelberg) was a German physician and physiologist. He was the brother of Ernst von Weizsäcker, and uncle to Richard von Weizsäcker and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. (For his family tree, see Weizsäcker.)
He studied at Tübingen, Freiburg, Berlin, and Heidelberg, where he earned his medical degree in 1910. In 1920, he became head of the neurological department at Ludolf von Krehl's clinic in Heidelberg. In 1941, he succeeded Otfrid Foerster as professor of neurology in Breslau, and in 1945 returned to Heidelberg as a professor of clinical medicine.
Weizsäcker is known for his pioneer work in psychosomatic medicine and for his theories regarding medical anthropology. He is remembered for his concept of Gestaltkreis, an elaboration of Gestalt psychology, in which he explains that biological events are not fixed responses but are dependent upon previous experience and are constantly being repatterned through experience. Via Gestalt, Weizsäcker attempted to theoretically represent the unit of perception and movement.
In the late 1920s, Weizsäcker was co-editor of Die Kreatur with philosopher Martin Buber (1878-1965) and theologian Joseph Wittig (1879-1949). In this journal, Weizsäcker advances his ideas concerning medical anthropology. In 1956, he published Pathosophie, where he tried to create a philosophical understanding of man through his drives, conflicts, and illnesses.

Otto Frank (21 June 1865 – 12 November 1944) was a Grand Duchy of Hesse born medical doctor and physiologist who made contributions to cardiac physiology and cardiology. The Frank–Starling law of the heart is named after him and Ernest Starling.

Jacques Loeb (; German: [løːp]; April 7, 1859 – February 11, 1924) was a German-born American physiologist and biologist.