Oswald Schmiedeberg

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| name = Johann Ernst Oswald Schmiedeberg

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| birth_date = 10 October 1838

| birth_place = Courland, Courland Governorate, Russian Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|1921|07|12|1838|10|10|df=y}}

| death_place = Baden-Baden

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| alma_mater = University of Dorpat

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Johann Ernst Oswald Schmiedeberg (10 October 1838 – 12 July 1921) was a Baltic German pharmacologist. In 1866 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Dorpat with a thesis concerning the measurement of chloroform in blood, before becoming the first professor of pharmacology at the University of Strasbourg, where he remained for 46 years.

In 1911, he testified in the United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola trial, and later, was a major factor in the success of the German pharmaceutical industry prior to the Second World War, having trained most of the European professors at the time.

Early life and family

Oswald Schmiedeberg was born in Courland, one of the Baltic provinces of Russia.{{Cite journal|last=Muscholl|first=E.|date=1995-10-01|title=The evolution of experimental pharmacology as a biological science: the pioneering work of Buchheim and Schmiedeberg1|journal=British Journal of Pharmacology|language=en|volume=116|issue=4|pages=2155–2159|doi=10.1111/j.1476-5381.1995.tb15047.x|issn=1476-5381|pmc=1908990|pmid=8564242}}{{Cite journal|date=3 June 1968|title=Oswald Schmiedeberg (1838-1921) Experimental Pharmacologist|journal=Journal of the American Medical Association|language=en|volume=204|issue=10|pages=924–925|doi=10.1001/jama.1968.03140230082018|issn=0098-7484|pmid=4869651}} His father Wilhelm Ludwig (1809–1878) was a bailiff in Leidzen and later forester in Paggar (Estonia). His mother Anna Lucie Bernard (1813–1871) was the daughter of a watchmaker from Lausanne. Oswald was the eldest of six siblings of whom a brother Johann Julius Rudolf became a forester. After education at the primary school at Permisküla, and the gymnasium in Dorpat he entered the medical school at the University of Dorpat.{{cite book|author=Bäumer, Beatrix|title=Neue Deutsche Biographie|year=2007|volume=23|pages=227–228 |url=https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd116794720.html#ndbcontent|chapter=Schmiedeberg, Oswald|language=de}}

Career

In 1866 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Dorpat with a thesis concerning the measurement of chloroform in blood, titled "Determination and Concentration of Chloroform in the Blood", and remained an assistant to Rudolf Buchheim at Dorpat (Tartu) until 1869.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PVG6CgAAQBAJ&q=Schmiedeberg+oswald+chloroform&pg=PA239|title=Discoveries in Pharmacological Sciences|last=Patil|first=Popat N.|date=2012|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-4355-08-7|location=Singapore|pages=239–240|language=en}} He was appointed Chair of Pharmacology and for one year then worked with Carl Ludwig at the University of Leipzig.

In 1872 he became the first professor of pharmacology at the University of Strasbourg, where he remained for the next 46 years.{{Cite journal|last1=Koch-Weser|first1=J.|last2=Schechter|first2=P. J.|date=April 1978|title=Schmiedeberg in Strassburg 1872-1918: the making of modern pharmacology|journal=Life Sciences|volume=22|issue=13–15|pages=1361–1371|doi=10.1016/0024-3205(78)90099-1|issn=0024-3205|pmid=351320}}{{subscription required}}{{Cite book|last=Muscholl|first=E.|title=Encyclopedia of Life Sciences|chapter=Schmiedeberg, Oswald|date=2001|work=eLS|publisher=American Cancer Society|language=en|doi=10.1038/npg.els.0003617|isbn=978-0-470-01590-2}}

His work largely dealt with chemicals poisonous to the heart, causing vomiting and those causing passing urine, as well as hypnotics, venoms and metals. With his pupil Hans Horst Meyer he discovered glucuronic acid as a conjugation partner in xenobiotic metabolism and later found that glucuronic acid was also a component of cartilage and occurred as a disaccharide of chondroitin sulfate. He studied the composition of hyaluronic acid and explored its relationship to collagen, amyloid and chondroitin sulfate. In 1869 he demonstrated that muscarine had a similar effect on the heart as electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve. He also demonstrated the hypnotic properties of urethane.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

In 1911,{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NcJFAQAAIAAJ&q=oswald+schmiedeberg+coca+cola&pg=PA56|title=Notice of Judgement, Food and Drug Act|last=Agriculture|first=United States Department of|date=1912|pages=56–57|language=en}} he testified in the United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola trial.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i1g4DgAAQBAJ&q=oswald+schmiedeberg+coca+cola&pg=PT96|title=For God, Country, and Coca-Cola|last=Pendergrast|first=Mark|date=2013|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=978-0-465-04699-7|language=en}}{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yBc0AQAAMAAJ&q=oswald+schmiedeberg+coca+cola&pg=PA32|title=The United States, Appellant, Vs. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs, Coca-Cola, Appellee: From the District Court of the United States, Southern Division, Eastern District of Tennessee. Record, Part 1-4. James B. Cox ... W.B. Miller ... for Appellant; J.B. Sizer ... Harold Hirsch ... for Appellee|date=1912|publisher=Macgowan-Cooke|language=en}}

Schmiedeberg was a major factor in the success of the German pharmaceutical industry prior to World War II, having trained most of the professors at the time.{{cite web|title=A brief history of pharmacology|publisher=Modern Drug Discovery, American Chemical Society|url=http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/mdd/v04/i05/html/05timeline.html|access-date=2 April 2007|year=2001}} He published over 200 scientific books and articles and with pathologists Bernhard Naunyn (1839–1925) and Edwin Klebs (1834–1913), he co-founded the journal Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology.

Death and legacy

Having been in declining health for the remainder of his life, Schmiedeberg died at the age of 82 of natural causes in Baden-Baden.

Selected publications

[https://web.archive.org/web/20191203182812/https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs3/object/display/bsb10855892_00003.html Ueber die quantitative bestimmung des Chloroforms im Blute und sein Verhalten gegen dasselbe]. 1866 – On the quantitative determination of chloroform in the blood, etc.
[http://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/22650 Das Muscarin. Das giftige Alkaloid des Fliegenpilzes (Agaricus muscarius L.) seine Darstellung, chemischen Eigenschaften, physiologischen Wirkungen, toxicologische Bedeutung und sein Verhältniss zur Pilzvergiftung im allgemeine], 1869 – Muscarine. The poisonous alkaloid of fly agaric mushroom, its representation, chemical properties, physiological effects, etc.
[http://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/22651 Grundriss der Arzneimittellehre], 1883 – Fundamentals of pharmacology.
"The dietetic and therapeutic uses of ferratin"; published in English (1893).
"Ferratin : the ferruginous element of food"; published in English (1894).
Grundriss der Pharmakologie in Bezug auf Arzneimittellehre und Toxikologie, 1902 [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-32665 Digital 5th edition from 1906] by the University and State Library Düsseldorf
Arzneimittel und genussmittel, Salzwasser (1912). [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-19735 Digital edition] by the University and State Library Düsseldorf
Über die Pharmaka in der Ilias und Odyssee. Karl J. Trubner, Strasburg (1918). [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:061:2-21188 Digital edition] by the University and State Library Düsseldorf

Oswald Schmiedeberg

Early life and family

Career

Death and legacy

Selected publications

References

Further reading