Last modification: 24 September 2008
Online Book of Abstracts - A Thematic List:
SESSIONS / SYMPOSIA
Edited by Michal Kokowski
http://www.cyfronet.pl/~n1kokows/home.html
n1kokows@cyf-kr.edu.pl
Symposium R-2.
ACHIEVEMENTS OF CENTRAL EUROPE IN SCIENCE, IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORICAL STUDIES
ORGANIZER OF THE SYMPOSIUM:
Michal KOKOWSKI (Krakow, Poland)
www.cyfronet.pl/~n1kokows/home.html
n1kokows@cyf-kr.edu.pl
CHAIRPERSONS OF SESSIONS OF THE SYMPOSIUM:
Roman DUDA (Wroclaw, Poland)
romanduda@poczta.onet.pl
Andrzej PELCZAR (Krakow, Poland)
Andrzej.Pelczar@im.uj.edu.pl
Juraj SEBESTA (Bratislava, Slovakia)
sebesta@fmph.uniba.sk
Sona STRBANOVA (Prague, The Czech Republic)
sstrban@vol.cz
Éva Katalin VÁMOS (Budapest, Hungary)
vamos.eva@chello.hu; evamos@nadir.hmst.hu
R-2.
Polish Initiative in Creation of the International Union for Quaternary Research(INQUA)
Stefan Witold ALEXANDROWICZ (Cracow, Poland)
sz.alex@vp.pl
INQUA - the most active scientific organization of the International Geological Union was established though and though owing to the Polish initiative undertook by Prof. M. Limanowski as "Association pour l'Etude du Quaternaire Européen". It was during the meeting organized in 1928 in Copenhagen on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Geological Institute of Denmark. The idea of such new Association was born six years earlier, at the same time when representatives from four countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia), taking part in the XIII Geological Congress in Brussels proposed foundation of the Carpathian Geological Association ("Association Geologique Carpathique"). Simultaneously Prof M. Limanowski talked about this idea with German geologists (Dr Wunstorf), what was noted in a letter sent him on February 1928 by Geological Institute in Berlin (Preussische Geologische Landesanstalt).
In this connection the Polish Geological Society organized the conference in Cracow (21 March 1928), which was the first step to create the new organization, called at the beginning "Glaciological Association". The adequate proposition and the text of statute were prepared by prof. J. Lewinski from the Warsaw Branch of the Society.
The Congress in Copenhagen took place on 17-30 June 1928 with the participation of 8 Polish geologists. During the session at 25.06. Prof. M. Limanowski presented the motion leading to the creation of Associaton, called "Association pour l'Etude du Quaternaire Européen". It found the full unanimously acceptation and the statute proposed by the Polish delegation was also accepted. Fourteen European countries acceded to the alliance. Simultaneously and Prof. V. Madsen (Denmark) was elected as a president, Prof. J. Nowak (Poland) - as a secretary and Prof. D.I. Musketov (Soviet Union) as a chief of the Bureau. A year later, during the XV World Congress in Pretoria, according to the well motivated suggestion prepared by the Polish delegation and presented by Prof. J. Lewinski, the new organization was confirmed by the Union of Geological Sciences as the Association. It was contrary to the proposition of German geologists, suggesting a subordinate rank - "Commission".
The second Meeting of the Association was organized in Leningrad, Kiev and Moscow (1932) and the third - in Vienna (1936). Since that time some countries from America and Asia (United States, Canada, Japan) joint the Association and finally it took the name "International Union for Quaternary Reseach" (INQUA), used up today.
After the Second World War Polish scientists took a very active part in the fifth congress in Spain and as result the next, the sixth INQUA congress was organized at 1961 in Poland. More then 500 scientists from 31 countries participated in this meeting, which was particularly important for the development of quaternary research.
R-2.
The Lvov School of Mathematics
Roman DUDA (Wroclaw, Poland)
romanduda@poczta.onet.pl
In the years 1772-1918, at the periphery of Habsburg empire, there was an ancient Polish city Lwów (in other languages Leopolis, Lemberg, Lvov, Lviv). In the city there was a university, founded 1661, in which original Latin language of instruction was replaced after 1773 by German and then, in 1871, by Polish. Since 1910 the two chairs of mathematics in that university were occupied by J. Puzyna and W. Sierpiñski, the two surrounded by a group of talented youngsters (Z. Janiszewski, S. Mazurkiewicz, S. Ruziewicz and others). The development, however, has been broken by the outbreak of War World I. And around 1920 there emerged a new group of young mathematicians, with H. Steinhaus and S. Banach as leaders, which flourished during the next two decades and became known as the Lvov School of Mathematics, a part of the interwar Polish School of Mathematics.
Main achievements of the Lvov School were in the area of functional analysis (Banach spaces, Hahn-Banach theorem on extending functionals, Banach-Steinhaus theorem on condensation of singularities, duality theory, Orlicz spaces, nonlinear case, topological methods), measure theory (Banach-Tarski paradox, measurable cardinals) and probability theory (probability as a measure, independent functions), but important contributions were also made to the theory of functions, game theory, algebra (normed rings, Banach algebras), partial differential equations (of elliptic and hyperbolic type), recursive functions etc. A characteristic feature of the Lvov School was frequent use of ineffective methods (Axiom of Choice, Baire category method, Lebesgue measure) in proving existential theorems. The development has been supported by the journal Studia Mathematica (founded 1929), frequent sessions of the Lvov branch of the Polish Mathematical Society, vivid contacts within country and abroad, daily visits in the Scottisch Café with the famous Scottish Book, and - most important of all - many talented youngsters including M. Kac, S. Mazur, W. Orlicz, J. Schauder. S. Ulam and others. Prospects for further development seemed rather good but the incredible catastrophe of War World II brought an end to the School. Most Lvov mathematicians have perished during Soviet or Nazi occupation and after 1945 the remaining Poles were ultimately expelled from their city which was to become a part of the Soviet Ukraine. The Lvov School of Mathematics ceased to exist.
R-2.
Ludwik Fleck as a Medical Scientist, Microbiologist and Immunologist
Andrzej GRZYBOWSKI (Poznan, Poland)
andrzej_grzybowski@um.poznan.pl
Ludwik Fleck was born in Lwow on July 11, 1896. He gained his first experiences in microbiology as an assistant of Prof. Rudolf Weigl - a well known typhus specialist at the Lwow Medical School.
Although presently Ludwik Fleck is predominantly recognized as a philosopher of medicine and science, he was a very productive researcher in the fields of microbiology, serology and immunology. He published, as an author and co-author, about 170 original and review papers. His main achievements included the discovery of exanthin reaction, the detection of typhus antigenic substances in urine, the first description of the phenomenon of leukergy, and many observations describing the behavior of leucocytes in infectious and stress situations.
The aim of this study is to analyze the perception of Fleck's major medical discoveries in the present-day medical science.
R-2.
Jaroslav Heyrovský and Wiktor Kemula:
the Czech and Polish Polarography
Jiøí JINDRA (Prague, The Czech Republic)
jindra @usd.cas.cz
The paper intends to throw some light on the relations between the representatives of the Czech and Polish polarographic schools, namely J. Heyrovský (1890-1967) and W.Kemula (1902-1985).
Professor Heyrovský, an inventor of polarography and a founder of polarographic school, accepted in 1930 Dr. Kemula of the University of Lwow in Prague Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Charles University. During Kemula´s attachment he got acquainted with the polarographic method and also published two papers on it here. It was a start of the future. Kemula's polarographic carreer. Beginning 50s Kemula created on the Warwaw University the Polish polarographic school.
The correspondence covering the 1934-1965 period preserved in Prague witnesses for Heyrovský´s contacts with Kemula. Both correspondences are written in Czech. Approximately 130 letters refer both to some private (better to say family) matters while depicting also the scientific issues referring to the methods of polarography (publications, internships of the Czech and Polish polarographists both in Poland and in Czechoslovakia, conferences, paper reviews, etc).
The relationship between both the Professors - the tuitor, and later also Nobel Prize Laureate for polarography, J. Heyrovský, and his appreciative disciple W. Kemula, was indeed an enormously cordial one. Later, there relations were transmitted to the disciples of both of the protagonists. Their relation may serve as an example of a fruitful and successful cooperation between the Czech and the Polish scientists.
R-2.
A Somewhat Obscure Discoverer of Plasmodesmata - Eduard Tangl (1848-1905)
Piotr KÖHLER (Cracow, Poland)
kohler@ib.uj.edu.pl
Denis J. CARR (Pearce, Australia)
dcarr@homemail.com.au
Eduard Tangl was born in 1848 in Lemberg / Lwów in Galicia (southern part of Poland under Austrian rule, now: Lviv, Ukraine). The Tangl family had come from Wolfsberg, Kärnten, in Austria. Eduard's father, Andreas, was a physician at the provincial prison in Lemberg. Eduard Tangl studied botany at Lemberg University. His tutor was Professor Gustaw Adolf Weiss (1837-1894). In 1870 Eduard Tangl gained a doctorate of philosophy in botany at Lemberg University, and in 1871 he habilitated at the Faculty of Philosophy at the same university. He worked at Lemberg University in 1871-1876, and in 1874-1876 - at the School of Farming (Szko³a Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego) in Dublany near Lemberg. Since 1876, he was a professor of botany and pharmacognosy at Czernowitz University. He established a university botanical garden and botanical institute at Czernowitz. He died on 9 July 1905 in Czernowitz.
Eduard Tangl published at least 14 papers. Most of them were devoted to the anatomy and cytology of plants. In 1880 he published a series of observations on the cytoplasmic connections between cells of the endosperm of certain seeds. This observation was his greates discovery leading to a change in our concept of the plant entity and earning a place for himself in the pantheon of distinguished plant scientists. (In 1901, Eduard Strasburger gave the name "plasmodesmata" to the cytoplasmic connections.) The full elucidation of the nature of the intercellular connections had to await the advent of electron microscopy and its attendant techniques. It is now apparent that the existence of plasmodesmata makes for the cell to cell continuity that unites the cellular matrix of plant tissues, such as the continuity from cell to cell of the plasma membrane and the endoplasmic reticulum. The work of Tangl opened up new fields of investigation, new concepts and terminology. Tangl himself adumbrated some aspects of these developments. There was an immediate surge of interest and a spate of publications on the topic following Tangl's publication. The discovery that cells are not isolated entities, rather, they form an integrated system of plant function enabled the new vision of the plants.
Tangl's the only taxonomic paper was published in 1883. The author described in it a new genus and a new species of blue-green algae Plaxonema oscillans. Eduard Tangl was interested in the phenomenon of cell and nuclei division. However, his two papers on it did not bring any new important facts. He much contributed to the development of botany in Bukowina.
R-2 (Poster).
Emil Godlewski Senior's contribution to creating the basis of modern plant physiology
in the 19th and early 20th centuries
Izabela KRZEPTOWSKA-MOSZKOWICZ (Krakow, Poland)
krzeptow@poczta.onet.pl
Polish scholar E. Godlewski Senior was a leading plant physiologist who began his scientific activity in the 19th century. His choice of the scientific career path was influenced by two brilliant botanists: Edward Strasburger (1844-1912) and Julius Sachs (1832-1897). As a young researcher, Godlewski studied in their laboratories. After returning to his country, he became a master and teacher. Godlewski is a pioneer of Polish plant physiology, and he is the creator of his own scientific school.
Godlewski's first physiological work was published in 1873, merely eight years after plant physiology originated as a separate and modern branch of botanical sciences. Its start was in 1865, when German botanic J. Sachs published a handbook, which featured all contemporary knowledge in this discipline.
Godlewski's scientific achievements refer to different areas of plant physiology such as: photosynthesis, respiration, growth, etiolation, metabolic transformations of protein, water transport and nitrification. Many of his discoveries were entirely new facts, which changed the scope of hitherto existing knowledge. Most of Godlewski's works were published in a renowned German science magazines, but they were also published in Poland. They were cited by scholars worldwide.
The methodology of Godlewski,s work was of large significance in this research. His experiments are characterized by enormously inventive methods, well-planned research, extensive knowledge and reliable results. He was the author of the original instrument used in researching respiration.
Some of Godlewski's works also gained a practical aspect, particularly in agriculture, e.g. the discovery that the intensity of photosynthesis could be enhanced by increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide. Presently people use carbon dioxide as a fertilizer, particularly in greenhouse cultivation.
Presently Godlewski is seldom mentioned in botanical history studies. This absence will be completed by the study of his life and scientific activity, which is now being led at the Botanic Garden at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
R-2.
KER and War: Polish Synthetic Rubber in American War Efforts, 1941-45
Slawomir LOTYSZ (Zielona Gora, Poland)
s.lotysz@ib.uz.zgora.pl
With the outbreak of World War II at Pacific Ocean Japan captured 90 percent of the world production of natural caoutchouc. In fact, predicting how the things could have gone, yet before Pearl Harbor, Jesse Jones, US Secretary of Commerce and Federal Loan Administration had stockpiled about one year's supply of crude rubber, some 570,000 tons. Politician leaders and business called for huge investment in guayule, crytostegia, and other natural American-grown substitutes. While there was neither proper technology nor time to let the plants growing, the search for synthetic butadiene became the only feasible way to produce rubber.
Until the late 1930s only three countries in the world had possessed the formula synthetic rubber: Germany, Soviet Russia and Poland. The German technology based on acetylene or, other words, on coal as the raw material, was for obvious reasons out of reach. The Soviets were unwilling to share their cellulose based formula with their allies. Poland was conquered and the experimental plant of synthetic rubber (called KER) was captured. Luckily, the inventor of the method, Waclaw Szukiewicz, escaped carrying off the formula in his head. In 1941 he was brought to America by Polish-American patriots, count Tarnowski among others. Tarnowski contacted William S.B. Lacy of the Office of Price Administration, who helped to ensure an American visa for Szukiewicz.
The scientist has landed in the middle of fierce battle for half a billion worth government's contract. Some 700,000 tons of synthetic rubber was to be produced annually at the sum. The estimate was made on the basis that petroleum would be used as a raw material in the process of synthesizing the butadiene, but in Washington there were also some politicians, who cried for utilizing the huge surplus of agricultural production. Democratic Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa, and Dr Lewis H. Marks of the Publicker Commercial Alcohol Company advocated so called "Szukiewicz's or Polish formula" of manufacturing synthetic rubber out of alcohol. On April 30, 1942 before the Senate Agricultural subcommittee Lewis stated it was possible to reach 700,000 tons level within eight months. It would be produced for 75 millions dollars comparing to 490 millions planned by government. Far from all those clashes, engineer Szukiewicz was busy in Peoria's laboratory in Illinois, where he was kept out of sight of government agencies, which were definitively pro-oil orientated.
In the report of Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of US Senate published in 1942 one can read "We feel that sooner or later the value of this Polish process would be recognized". It was not. "The oilmen" have won the contract "in spite of the fact, that never in this world has there been manufactured more than 50,000 tons of butadiene from petroleum, and yet some 500,000 tons has been made successfully from alcohol" as Dr William J. Hale, chemistry research consultant complained. Szukiewicz's method was eventually employed in a single plant completed shortly before the war was over. But then it was not remembered as "Polish" or "Szukiewicz's formula" any more. From now on it was "Publicker's". Ironically, in post-war Poland, after few years of successful manufacturing rubber out of alcohol, the oil based method has been introduced.
R-2.
Two international achievements of Lithuanians
in the experimental botany science of twentieth century
Aurika RICHKIENE (Vilnius, Lithuania)
aurika@botanika.lt
Lithuania has had long experience in the botany science. Natural philosophy was discoursed at Vilnius University since its founding in 1579. Experimental botany started since founding Chair of Natural Sciences at Vilnius University in 1781. However development of botany was interrupted in 1832.
In 1918 Lithuania gained its independence. In 1922 University of Lithuania and therein Chair of Botany was founded. In the middle of the thirties botanist of University of Lithuania Jonas Dagys started research work in the field of plant growth and development physiology. The scholars of those days knew already about growth substances in living organisms and classified them into two groups. One group was named auxins and characterized as materials, which promote elongation growth. Second group - "bios" was characterized as responsible for plant cell division. Jonas Dagys investigated "bios". He suggested that "bios" motivate not only plant cell division but also growth, which was different than those days standing view.
After World War II another Lithuanian plant physiologist Alfonsas Merkys has started investigations in the field of plant growth and development physiology as well. In those days it was considered that plant hormone auxin action is decisive for plant space orientation during plant growth process. It was explained referring on theory of Cholodny-Went. In the middle of the sixties the view that growth process is regulated by hormone action in the gene level was proposed. American James Bonner suggested that auxin regulates plant growth acting with chromosomal proteins - histones. At the same time Lithuanian Alfonsas Merkys proposed that auxin starts the primary action by interacting with a certain protein and acts in the gene level.
Paper will present history of two interesting research works of the experimental botany in Lithuania, emphasizing their place in the worldwide background.
R-2.
Establishing an Astronomical Network from Gdansk:
Johannes Hevelius' Exchange with the European Scientific Community
Voula SARIDAKIS (Lake Forest, USA)
saridakis@ameritech.net
By the late seventeenth century, astronomers were working within a variety of overlapping social settings that were international in scope. There were no boundaries in the promotion of astronomy, and there was a sense of "fluidity" across geographical borders as well as across settings as practitioners moved in and out of scientific circles with relative ease. Collaboration through correspondence led to the creation of many networks that offered a certain sense of interconnectedness, protection, cohesion, and solidarity to astronomical practitioners and their work. Consequently, astronomy was promoted in all "spaces" with certain expectations regarding the adoption of new instruments, the sharing of measurements and observations, and the participation of individuals as active members in the astronomical community.
This paper will focus on one of Europe's preeminent astronomers of the seventeenth century, Johannes Hevelius, who lived, worked, and established his own network in Gdansk (Danzig). His travels around Europe early in his life - including a lengthy tour of London and Paris - formed the basis of many of the relationships that he would cultivate later in life. With the advent of the new scientific societies, correspondence with newer acquaintances increased significantly, especially through the efforts of Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society of London. Although Hevelius worked as far geographically as Gdansk from astronomers in either England or France, he took advantage of the friendships with foreign virtuosi whom he had met on his travels as well as the newer vehicle of correspondence through scientific societies. Hevelius' case demonstrates how, despite his geographical location, he was far from a lonely figure working in isolation. Instead, he actively participated in the promotion and dissemination of astronomical knowledge and encouraged others to do so as well.
R-2.
Natural Scientist I. Puluj and Discovery of the X-Rays
Warfolomey SAVCHUK (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine)
elena.scherbak@mail.ru
Ivan Puljuj, native of Western Ukraine, was one of the world known scientists in Habsburg Monarchy. He passed a long way from the graduate of theological (1869) and philosophical (1872) faculties of the Viennese university up to the professor and the Rector of German high technical school in Prague. In 1968 Professor V. Forman (Austria) has expressed about him as about one of "the most outstanding persons of the end of 19th - the beginnings of 20th centuries". His activity seems is well enough investigated.
Nevertheless, not all in it is possible to be considered as finally found out. First of all, it is the problem of the X-rays discovery and research and I.Puljuj's attitude to it. In a question on I.Puljuj's contribution to discovery and research X-ray radiation two different approaches were brightly showed. This bias also has found reflection in estimation of his scientific contribution to physics. In a number of publications, the idea of I.Puljuj's priority in X-ray discovery is actively defended. This point of view is not supported by us. Other group of historians of science considers that I.Puljuj did not bring any contribution neither to discovery X-ray radiation, nor to its studying. The majority of them practically repeat A.F.Joffe's statement, which he expressed in 1946 (keeping in mind the first publications of W.Roentgen): "all this three messages ... with such unusual completeness have opened the nature of the given phenomenon, equal which we do not know in history of a science". But, as still O.Vloh, R.Gajda and R.Pljatchko have paid attention, A.F.Ioffe's estimation of the W.Roentgen's contribution in research (not in discovery X-rays) in the specified time interval is a little bit overestimated.
We have studied the first publications of W.Roentgen and I.Puljuj concerning X-rays research. In our opinion, our research allows to estimate a role of these scientists in X-rays research, clearing up their nature and opportunities of use more precisely.
R-2.
Gregor Mendel and the Scientific Milieu of His Discovery
Jiøí SEKERÁK (Brno, Moraviae, The Czech Republic)
genetika@mzm.cz
Mendel is the discoverer of elements of inheritance (i. e. genetic information) and the author of the first model of the transfer of genetic information from generation to generation.
Mendel published his discovery in the Natural Science Research Society in Brno in two meetings on serialization in 1865. His classic paper Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden ("Experiments in Plant Hybrids") was printed in the annual volume of that Society in 1866. In 1865 the Natural Science Society distributed its annual volume to more than to130 scientific institutions in Europe and overseas. To Vienna, e. g., the annual volumes with Mendel´s paper were sent to the Royal and Imperial Academy of Sciences, R. I. Institute of Geology, R. I. Central Institute of Meteorology, R. I. Society of Geography, R. I. Society of Zoology and Botany, R. I. Alpine Society. In Berlin Mendel´s paper was sent to Royal Academy of Sciences, Botanical Society of Brandenburg Province, German Geological Society, Society for the Improvement of Horticulture in Prussia, Society for General Knowledge on Earth , Society of Physics. In Wroclaw the annual volume was addressed to Silesian Society for Culture of the Country, Silesian Central Society of Horticulture, Society of Arts and Industry. Of interest are also personalities and institutions to whom Mendel sent his reprints.
In this connection it may be interesting to point to the origin of the Natural Science Society in Brno in 1861. It was founded by the members of the former Natural Science Section of the Agriculture Society in Brno who aimed at theoretical explanation of natural phenomena and changes in Nature. In the opening of the Natural Science Research Society its author stressed the necessity of abandoning speculations and starting research, of abandoning vague words and beginning to create a new terminology.
R-2.
L. I. Kordysch and the Development of Theoretical Physics in the First Part of
the 20th Century in the Ukraine: All-European Context
Olena SHCHERBAK (Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine)
elena.scherbak@mail.ru
The formation and the development of theoretical physics in the Ukraine were closely connected with the activity of the professor of Vladimir's Kiev University and Kiev Polytechnic Institute, the director of the theoretical department of Scientific - Research Physics Institute, a Corresponding Member of the Vseukrainskaya Academy of Sciences and a member of Krakow Academy of Sciences - Leon - Mariana Iosivovich Kordysch a Polish by origin. The sphere of his researches included works on the Theory of Relativity and Quantum theory, Physics of X-rays and Quantum Mechanics, the Theory of Fluctuations and its application in optics and radio engineering, the Theory of electroconductivity, photoelectric phenomena and radioactivity. By O. Hvolsona's response, "Kordysch was one of our most talented experts in theoretical physics".
In the paper, based on the archives materials, has been analyzed scientific contacts with European physics, M. Planck, A. Somerfeld, E. Varburg and others. In particular, it was possible to find out, that besides three business trips to Berlin University, Sorbonne and Munich University during the period from 1906 until 1913, Kordysch undertook a business trip to Berlin University in the period of the summer semester in 1902. The hand-written report on the given business trip has been saved. It, in essence, represents the analysis of M. Planck's lectures on electromagnetic theory of light. A number of Kordysch's works devoted to various questions of theoretical physics, the works concerning Theory of Relativity and considered their role in development of Special Theory of Relativity and General Theory of Relativity as a regional constituent of All European process formation of new physics have been analyzed.
The scientific activity of the scientist during the period after 1917 and the activity of his scientific school have been also shown.
R-2.
Scientific and Personal Contacts of Polish Physicists with Einstein
Bronislaw SREDNIAWA (Cracow, Poland)
b.sredniawa@wp.pl
The scientific and social relations of Polish physicists, living in Poland and in the emigration, with Einstein, in the first half of the 20th century are presented. Two Polish physicists, J. Laub and L. Infeld were Einsteina collaborators. The exchange of letters between M. Smoluchowski and Einstein contributed essentially to the solution of the problem of density fluctuations. S. Loria, J. Kowalski, W. Natanson, M. Wolfke and L. Silberstein led scientific discussions with Einstein. Marie Sklodowska-Curie collaborated with Einstein in the Commission of Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. Einstein proposed scientific collaboration to M. Mathisson, but because of the outbreak of the Worid War II and of Mathisson's death, their collaboration could not be realized. Contacts of Polish physicists with Einstein contributed to the development of relativity in Poland.
R-2.
Browicz or Kupffer Cells?
A. SRÓDKA (Krakow, Poland)
andrzej@srodka.pl
W. GRYGLEWSKI (Krakow, Poland)
wgryglew@cm-uj.krakow.pl
W. SZCZEPANSKI (Krakow, Poland)
The paper is concerned to problem of discovery of stellate cells present in the liver sinusoid, which are recognized in the European medical literature as Kupffer cells. On the other hand in Poland the name of professor Tadeusz Browicz is firmly connected with the cells resulting in eponymous Browicz cells.
The authors are trying to determine who has priority in this respect; Karl Kupffer, a professor of anatomy in Kõnigsberg and then in München, or professor of pathological anatomy at the Jagellonian University, Tadeusz Browicz.
Key words: "Liver", "stellate cells", "Kupffer", "Browicz"
R-2.
Three Generations of Natural Scientists in Hungary 1848-1918
Éva Katalin VÁMOS (Budapest, Hungary)
vamos.eva@chello.hu; evamos@nadir.hmst.hu
The period 1848-1918 is divided in Hungarian history in three different sections: absolutism, 1849-1867; the Dual Monarchy, 1867-1914; World War I, 1914-1918.
During absolutism the language of university education in Hungary was German, and German-speaking professors were appointed. During 150 years they were considered tools of national and linguistic oppression, although some of them were outstanding scientists. Theodor Wertheim (1820-1864), professor of chemistry at Budapest University of Sciences and Heinrich Wilhelm Pabst (1798-1868), Director of the Agricultural Academy Magyaróvár and of a factory, shall be mentioned here.
Universities got back Hungarian as language of education in 1860/61, although the total political compromise was achieved in 1867 only. A boom in scientific and cultural public life followed. The scientists of the epoch organized scientific institutions and published their research results in Hungarian language. The paper mentions chemists Károly Than (1834-1908), Kálmány Szily (1838-1924) and Lajos Ilosvay (1851-1936) as well as physician Frigyes Korányi (1827-1913) and archeologist Ferenc Pulszky (1814-1891).
By the end of the 19th century the scientific institutions were firmly established. In the new buildings well equipped laboratories allowed research at European level. Part of the scientists of the turn of the century strived for addressing problems of world level of their speciality from Budapest. They published their research in international journals. Chemist Lajos Winkler (1863-1939) and physicist Gyõzõ Zemplén (1879-1916) are mentioned.
The single-centred scientific world remained so-to-say preserved for nearly a century, and is starting but today to become efficiently a world with several centres.