Albrecht Julius Theodor Bethe (25 April 1872 in Stettin – 19 October 1954 in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

) was a German physiologist. He was the father of physicist

Hans Bethe Hans Albrecht Bethe (; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel ...

(1906–2005). He studied at the universities of

Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

(under

Richard Hertwig Richard Wilhelm Karl Theodor Ritter von Hertwig (23 September 1850 in Friedberg, Hesse – 3 October 1937 in Schlederloh, Bavaria), also Richard Hertwig or Richard von Hertwig, was a German zoologist and professor of 50 years, notable as the fir ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

and Strasbourg (under

Friedrich Goltz Friedrich Leopold Goltz (14 August 1834 – 5 May 1902) was a German physiologist and nephew of the writer Bogumil Goltz. Born in Posen (Poznań), Grand Duchy of Posen, he studied medicine at the University of Königsberg, and following two year ...

and

Ernst Julius Richard Ewald Ernst Julius Richard Ewald (14 February 1855 – 22 July 1921) was a German physiologist born in Berlin. He was a younger brother to gastroenterologist Carl Anton Ewald (1845–1915). In 1880, after finishing his studies in mathematics, physics an ...

); receiving his PhD in 1895 at Munich. From 1896 to 1911 he worked at the institute of physiology in Strasbourg, where in 1898 he obtained his doctorate in medicine. In 1911 he became a professor of physiology at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian-Albrecht University of Kiel, (german: Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in ...

, and four years later, relocated as a professor to the University of Frankfurt. In 1937 he was relieved of his professorial duties at Frankfurt (his wife was deemed to be half-Jewish by the Nazis), only to have them reinstated following the end of wartime hostilities in Europe.Bethe, Albrecht
The Virtual Laboratory He is well known for his studies involving the

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...

of invertebrates. He believed in the " plasticity" of the nervous system, asserting that if one part of the brain is damaged, another part could learn the functions of the damaged portion. He was a co-editor of '' Pflüger's Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie'' (from 1918 onward) and of the ''Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie'' (1925–32). The young physician Rose Hölscher made a

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

of him, published in the 1921 booklet ''Frankfurter Charakterköpfe'' with portraits of prominent Frankfurt physicians.

Selected works

* ''Formaldehyd! Nicht Formol oder Formalin'', 1895. * ''Eine neue Methode der Methylenblaufixation'', 1896. * ''Allgemeine Anatomie und Physiologie des Nervensystems'', 1903. * ''Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie, mit Berücksichtigung der experimentellen Pharmakologie'' (multi-volume, with Gustav von Bergmann, Gustav Georg Embden and Alexander Ellinger); from 1925 onward.HathiTrust Digital Library
published works

References

1872 births 1954 deaths Physicians from Szczecin Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of Goethe University Frankfurt Academic staff of the University of Strasbourg Academic staff of the University of Kiel German physiologists {{Germany-scientist-stub