Hermann Senator

Hermann Senator

Hermann Senator
Born December 6, 1834
Gnesen
Died July 14, 1911
Nationality Germany
Fields medicine
Influences Johannes Peter Müller
Johann Lukas Schönlein

Hermann Senator (December 6, 1834 - July 14, 1911) was a German internist who was a native of Gnesen in the Prussian Province of Posen (now Gniezno, Wielkopolska, Poland).

He studied medicine in Berlin, where he received his medical doctorate in 1857. Among his instructors in Berlin were Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858), Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793-1864) and Ludwig Traube (1818-1876). In 1875 he became chief physician in the internal medicine department at the Augusta-Hospital, and in 1881 became head physician at the Berlin Charité.

After the death of Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (1819-1885), he served as head of the "first medical clinic" at Berlin for a few months. In 1888 his department at the Charité was made into the "third medical clinic", expanded and made a part of a policlinic with Senator as its director. Beginning in 1872 he was co-editor of "Centralblatt für die medizinischen Wissenschaften".

Hermann Senator made several contributions in internal medicine, in particular, involving research in the field of nephrology. He was the author of influential works associated with diabetes and albuminuria, and is credited with disproving the once held belief that albuminuria was always a sign of primary kidney disease.[1] His treatise on diseases of the kidneys, "Die Erkrankungen der Nieren", was included in Nothnagel's textbook of special pathology and therapy. Senator was also the author of a significant study on fevers, titled "Untersuchungen über den fieberhaften Process und seine Behandlung" (Investigations of the febrile process and its treatment).

In 1868 he introduced his theory of "autointoxication", of which he speculated that "self-infection" originating in the intestines could be a source of disease elsewhere in the human body. He also believed that autointoxication could be the root cause of certain mental disorders.

Selected publications

References

  1. NCBI Hermann Senator and albuminuria--forgotten pioneering work in the 19th century Nephrol Dial Transplant. 2009 Mar;24(3):1057-62. doi: 10.1093/ndt/gfn741. Epub 2008 Dec 10.
  2. Bibliography of Senator @ Who Named It
  3. Google Books Diseases of the kidneys and of the spleen, etc.

External links

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