Hans Leo Przibram [] (7 July 1874 – 20 May 1944) was an Austrian people, Austrian biologist who founded the biological laboratory in Vienna.
Career
Hans was as elder son of Gustav and Charlotte Przibram.
His mother was the daughter of
Friedrich Schey von Koromla
Friedrich Schey Freiherr von Koromla (5 March 1815, in Kőszeg – 15 July 1881, in Lainz) was an Austrian banker. Around 1863, he built Palais Schey von Koromla in Vienna, Austria.
Life
Friedrich Schey was the son of a wealthy Jewish owner ...
.
After attending the
Academic Gymnasium
The Academic Gymnasium Danzig (german: Akademisches Gymnasium Danzig, pl, Gdańskie Gimnazjum Akademickie, Latin: ''Gymnasium Dantiscanum'') was a school founded in Gdańsk, Poland. It was founded in 1558 by Johann Hoppe (1512–1565), who had p ...
in Vienna, he studied Zoology under
Berthold Hatschek
Berthold Hatschek (3 April 1854 in Skrbeň – 18 January 1941 in Vienna) was an Austrian zoologist remembered for embryology, embryological and morphology (biology), morphological studies of invertebrates.
Life
He studied zoology in Vienna under ...
at the
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...
.
[ In 1899 he graduated as medical doctor and Doctor of Philosophy. He received his habilitation at the University of Vienna in 1904 and from then on taught as a lecturer in zoology. In 1913, he became Professor of Experimental Zoology.
In 1902, together with the botanists Leopold von Portheim and Wilhelm Figdor, Hans Przibram bought the "Vivarium" in the Vienna Prater and set up a private research institute for experimental biology, the "Biologische Versuchsanstalt" (BVA), which opened in the following year. In 1914, the BVA donated to the Academy of Sciences in Vienna, together with a foundation that ensured continued operations. Przibram continued to lead the zoological department and, together with Portheim, the entire BVA. The University of Halle appointed Hans Przibram an honorary doctorate in 1917, followed in 1929 by an honorary doctorate from the University of Riga.
Being Jewish, he was persecuted under ]National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
, and on 1 May 1938 dismissed and expelled from the University of Vienna. His brother, the physicist Karl Przibram Karl may refer to:
People
* Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name
* Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne
* Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer
* Karl of Austria, last Austria ...
, in 1938 was also expelled as a teacher from the University of Vienna. Hans Przibam was also unable to continue his work as Head of the Department of Biological Research at the Academy of Sciences in Vienna, where he had been practicing for 35 years. From 13 April 1938, he and all other Jewish employees were forbidden to enter. He also had to leave his private library behind. The new head of the BVA, NSDAP member Franz Köck, in 1939 also reported Przibam to the Property Transaction Office, and subsequently confiscated his assets. Together with his wife Elisabeth, Hans Przibram was able to flee to Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
in December 1939 but they were deported on 21 April 1943 to the ghetto at Theresienstadt
Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...
, where he and his wife both died.
Evolution
Przibram was an advocate of orthogenesis
Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some go ...
. He proposed a theory known as "apogenesis". Science historian Igor Popov has noted that Przibram "rejected both the transformation of one species into another and the existence of genealogical trees. He believed that the major animal groups evolved in parallel rows, considering this process as analogous to the growth of crystals."
He was a critic of natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
and neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Dar ...
.[Delisle, Richard G. (2017). ''The Darwinian Tradition in Context: Research Programs in Evolutionary Biology''. Springer. p. 229. ]
References
1874 births
1944 deaths
Austrian people who died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto
Scientists from Vienna
Austrian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Austrian biologists
Orthogenesis
{{Austria-scientist-stub