Karl Heinrich Slotta (May 12, 1895 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) – July 17, 1987 in Coral Gables, Florida), was a biochemist. His discovery of progesterone and its relationship to ovulation led to the development of birth control pills.
Selmar Aschheim (4 October 1878 – 15 February 1965) was a German gynecologist who was a native resident of Berlin.
Born into a Jewish family, in 1902 he received a doctorate of medicine in Freiburg, and later became director of the laboratory of the Universitäts-Frauenklinik at the Berlin Charité. In 1930 Aschheim attained the chair of biological research in gynecology at the University of Berlin. In 1933 he fled Nazi Germany and moved to Paris, where he worked in medical research at the Hôpital Beaujon.
Aschheim was a specialist concerning gynecological histology and hormone research. In 1928 with endocrinologist Bernhard Zondek (1891–1966), he isolated the gonadotropic hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which was discovered in the urine of pregnant women. From their research the "Aschheim-Zondek test" for pregnancy was created, which involved injection of a patient's urine into an immature laboratory mouse. If the rodent displayed an estrous reaction, it represented a positive indication of pregnancy.
The two doctors published the findings of the hormone in a treatise titled Das Hormon des Hypophysenvorderlappens. At the time they believed that the gonadotrophin was produced by the anterior pituitary, however further research in the 1940s demonstrated that the placenta was responsible for the elaboration of the hormone.
Erich Franz Eugen Bracht (5 June 1882 – 1969) was a German pathologist and gynaecologist born in Berlin.
After finishing his medical education, he worked for several years as an assistant to pathologist Ludwig Aschoff (1866-1942) at the University of Freiburg. Later on, he
focused his attention to obstetrics and gynaecology, working as an assistant gynecologist in Heidelberg, Kiel (under Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel 1862-1909) and Berlin. In 1922 he became an associate professor at the University of Berlin and eventually director of the Charité Frauenklinik. Following World War II he served as a consultant of gynaecology and obstetrics during the American occupation of Berlin.While at Freiburg, Bracht made important contributions involving the pathological study of rheumatic myocarditis. With Hermann Julius Gustav Wächter, he described the eponymous "Bracht-Wachter bodies", defined as myocardial microabscesses seen in the presence of bacterial endocarditis.He is also remembered for the "Bracht manoeuvre" (first described in 1935), a breech delivery that allows for delivery of the infant with minimum interference.
Rudolf Schindler (1888–1968) was a German physician, who practiced medicine as a gastroenterologist. He is regarded widely as the "father of gastroscopy."He was born in Berlin. During the First World War he described numerous diseases involving the human digestive system. He wrote the illustrated textbook, Lehrbuch und Atlas der Gastroskopie (Textbook and Atlas of Gastroscopy).
Between 1928 and 1932 Schindler worked with the Berlin-based instrument-maker and technician, Georg Wolf, on the development of the first semi-flexible gastroscope, which allowed a greater range for examination, facilitating diagnosis and some treatments without abdominal surgery.
With the rise of the Nazi party he was arrested. Upon his release in 1934, he made his way to the United States of America. He settled in Chicago, Illinois, and practiced medicine there until 1943. He then relocated to Los Angeles, California, where he continued his work in gastroenterology until his retirement. His work included writing two more books in the field of gastroenterology, teaching students, and saving lives.
Schindler was married to Gabriele Winkler, who was an important contributor to his work and they had two children. After her death in 1964, he married Marie Aumüller Koch, a pianist by whom he was the natural father of two children, including actress and later doctor Marianne Koch, before he fled Germany in 1934. They moved to Munich, Germany where he died in 1968.
Walter Traugott Ulrich Pagel
(12 November 1898 – 25 March 1983) was a German pathologist and medical historian.Pagel was born in Berlin, the son of the famous physician and historian of medicine Julius Leopold Pagel. He married Dr. Magda Koll in 1920 and with her had a son, Bernard, in 1930. Pagel took his doctorate in Berlin in 1922 and became professor in Heidelberg in 1931. The family moved to Britain in 1933 for fear of persecution as Jews. Pagel practiced as Consultant Pathologist to the Central Middlesex Hospital, Harlesden, in Greater London From 1939 to 1956, and continued at the Clare Hall Hospital, Barnet, Hertfordshire from 1956 to 1967, when he retired. Following his retirement he began to devote his efforts to writing the history of medicine.
Walter Pagel died in Mill Hill in 1983.
Rudolf Schoenheimer (May 10, 1898 – September 11, 1941) was a German-American biochemist who developed the technique of isotope labelling/tagging of biomolecules, enabling detailed study of metabolism. This work revealed that all the constituents of an organism are in a constant state of chemical renewal.Born in Berlin, after graduating in medicine from the Friedrich Wilhelm University there, he learned further organic chemistry at the University of Leipzig and then studied biochemistry at the University of Freiburg where he rose to be Head of Physiological Chemistry.He spent the 1930-31 academic year at the University of Chicago.In 1933, following the rise of the Nazis to power he emigrated from Germany to the Columbia University to join the department of Biological Chemistry. Working with David Rittenberg, from the radiochemistry laboratory of Harold C. Urey and later together with Konrad Bloch, they used stable isotopes to tag foodstuffs and trace their metabolism within living things.He further established that cholesterol is a risk factor in atherosclerosis.He suffered from manic depression all of his life, which led to him in 1941 committing suicide using cyanide. He had been honoured with the request to give the Dunham Lecture at Harvard before his death. It was read for him following his death.
Fritz Heinrich Lewy (; January 28, 1885 – October 5, 1950), known in his later years as Frederic Henry Lewey, was a German-born American neurologist. He is best known for the discovery of Lewy bodies, which are a characteristic indicator of Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies.Lewy was born to a Jewish family in Berlin, Germany, on January 28, 1885. He trained in Berlin and Zürich and graduated from Berlin in 1910. He worked in Alois Alzheimer's Munich laboratory and was contemporary with Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (1885–1964), Alfons Maria Jakob (1884–1931) and Ugo Cerletti (1877–1963). In 1933, he fled Nazi Germany and moved to the United States. Lewy died in Haverford, Pennsylvania, on October 5, 1950, aged 65.
Ensil Ross Allen (January 2, 1908 – May 17, 1981) was an American herpetologist and writer who was based in Silver Springs, Florida for 46 years, where he established the Reptile Institute. He used it for research and education about alligators, crocodiles and snakes, also sponsoring and conducting collection expeditions.
Allen founded and was first president of the International Crocodile Society. In his research with snakes, he developed many anti-venoms, including a dried form, and professionally milked venoms for venomous snakes, which was particularly important for protecting United States forces during World War II. He mixed entertainment and science at his Institute.
Horace Louis Hodes (December 21, 1907 – April 24, 1989) was an American pediatrician and infectious disease researcher. He was the first to isolate rotavirus, he demonstrated that the Japanese encephalitis virus is transmitted by mosquitoes, and he discovered that vitamin D increases intestinal absorption of calcium. He spent his early career at Johns Hopkins Hospital and later became the chief of pediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and a professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Earl Stannard Herald (April 10, 1914 - January 16, 1973) was an American zoologist, Ichthyologist and television presenter. He was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and got his Ph.D. in 1943. In 1948, he became the director of the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, California, and from 1952 to 1966, he presented the popular science television programme Science in Action. Throughout his life, he studied a variety of aquatic organisms, especially pipefishes, and described many new taxa. He died in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California, in a scuba diving accident.