Wilhelm Falta (6 May 1875 – 15 July 1950) was a Bohemian physician who was a pioneer of diabetes research. He was among the first to recognize that decreased sensitivity to insulin, or insulin resistance, separated one form of diabetes from another. Falta was born at Karlovy Vary, Bohemia to goldsmith Wilhelm and his wife Berta Seiffert. He was educated at Prague and Strassburg, receiving a degree in medicine in 1900. He then worked with Karl Hugo Huppert in Prague University and worked at the Basel Hospital with

Friedrich von Müller Friedrich von Müller (17 September 1858, Augsburg – 18 November 1941, Munich) was a German physician remembered for describing Müller's sign. He was the son of the head of the medical department in the hospital in Augsburg. He studied na ...

and Wilhelm His. He then worked at Vienna along with Carl von Noorden and

Karel Frederik Wenckebach Karel Frederik Wenckebach (; March 24, 1864 – November 11, 1940) was a Dutch anatomist who was a native of the Hague. He studied medicine in Utrecht, and in 1901 become a professor of medicine at the University of Groningen. Later he was a profe ...

. It was here that he began to examine metabolic diseases like

diabetes mellitus Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...

. Falta worked as a physician at the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Spital where he established a laboratory that was destroyed during World War II. He then worked at the Steinhof hospital for a while. He was an editor for the ''Wiener Archivs für Innere Medizin''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falta, Wilhelm 1875 births 1950 deaths Diabetologists People from Karlovy Vary Scientists from Austria-Hungary