Jacques Loeb

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Jacques Loeb (April 7, 1859 – February 11, 1924) was a German-born American physiologist and biologist.

1 Biography
2 Research area
3 Works
4 Links
5 References

[edit] Biography

Born in Mayen, Prussia, he was educated at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Strasburg (M. D. 1884). He took a postgraduate course at the universities of Strasburg and Berlin, and in 1886 became assistant at the physiological institute of the University of Würzburg, remaining there till 1888, when he went in a similar capacity to Strasburg. During his vacations he pursued biological researches, at Kiel in 1888, and at Naples in 1889 and 1890. In 1892 he was called to the University of Chicago as assistant professor of physiology and experimental biology, becoming associate professor in 1895, and professor of physiology in 1899. In 1902 he was called to fill a similar chair at the University of California. In 1910 Loeb moved to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York, where he headed a department created for him. He remained at Rockefeller (now Rockefeller University) until his death.

Through most of these years Loeb spent his summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., performing experiments on various marine invertebrates. It was at MBL that Loeb did his most famous experiment, on artificial parthenogenesis. Loeb was able to cause the eggs of sea urchins to begin embryonic development without sperm. This was achieved by slight chemical modifications of the water in which the eggs were kept.

Loeb became one of the most famous scientists in America, widely covered in newspapers and magazines. He was the model for the character of Max Gottlieb in Sinclair Lewis's Pulitzer-winning novel Arrowsmith, the first great work of fiction to idealize and idolize pure science.

Loeb was nominated many times for the Nobel Prize but never won.

[edit] Research area

The main subjects of his works are:

Animal tropisms and their relation to the instincts of animals
Heteromorphosis, i.e., substitution at will of one organ of an animal for another
Toxic and antitoxic effects of ions
Artificial parthenogenesis
Hybridization of the eggs of sea-urchins by the sperm of starfish.

[edit] Works

Among Loeb's works may be mentioned:

Heliotropismus der Thiere und Seine Identität mit dem Heliotropismus der Pflanzen Würzburg, 1889
Physiologische Morphologie part i., ib. 1890; part ii., ib. 1891
Vergleichende Physiologie des Gehirns und Vergleichende Psychologie Leipsic, 1899; edition in English, New York, 1900.A. F. T

Loeb's most famous and most influential work was The Mechanistic Conception of Life, originally published in 1912 and republished in 1964 with an introduction by Donald Fleming, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. It contains English translations of some of his previous publications, which were in German.