Prof. Dr. med. Robert Remak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Remak

From H.S. Morais, Eminent Israelites of the Nineteenth Century

Prof. Robert Remak, M. D., was born at Posen, in the Duchy of Posen, Prussian Poland, on July 26th, 1815. He received rudimentary instruction, and, from 1829 to 1833, attended the Gymnasium, whence he proceeded to the University of Berlin. He took rapid strides in the pursuit of his various studies. Medical work, however, drew forth the fulness of his capacities, and Prof. Reimahn, seeing it, foretold the future reserved for the earnest student. Remak graduated in 1838. With a deep consciousness of the importance of the avocation chosen, he followed a special course under John Miller and Schoenlein, till he felt that the knowledge acquired was equal to the demands of the profession. Then he came before the public. In 1847 Dr. Remak was appointed Privat Docent.

In 1861 he achieved his crowning triumph by being elected Professor Extraordinary at the University of Berlin. His elevation to that office, through the instrumentality of the immortal Alexander Von Humboldt* might well have been a cause for glorification, at a time when Jews were debarred from ascending the ladder of fame. Both as a practitioner and an author, Prof. Remak is renowned in the department of medicine which treats of the nerves. " His principal merits," ob serves a writer, " lie in his researches into the more delicate nerve-constructions, and into the develop ment of the vertebrates, and in the introduction of a constant electric current, as a remedy for the diseases of the nerve system." His works include " Diagnostic and Pathogenic Researches at the Schoen- lein Clinic" — 1845; "Concerning an Independent Nerve-System of the Skin"— 1847; "Concerning - the development of Vertebrates" — 185 1-5 ; "Metho dic Electrization of Palsied Muscles" — 1851 ; and " Galvano-Therapeutics of Nerve and Muscle Diseases" — 1858, — translated into French, in 1860. The Pro fessor also indited valuable articles for journals, and he was, from 1842, a contributor to the Yearly Reports for Medical Science (in Physiology). Robert Remak's extraordinary career closed at Kissingen, in Bavaria, on August 29th, 1865. In him, medicine lost one who had greatly extended its limits.