Magnus, Rudolph

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MAGNUS, RUDOLPH

MAGNUS, RUDOLPH (1873–1927), German physiologist and pharmacologist. Magnus, who was born in Brunswick, became one of the foremost co-workers of the famous physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington in Oxford. He investigated the mechanisms governing the posture and balance of the body and discovered its center of reflexes in the brainstem up to the midbrain. He became lecturer in pharmacology at Heidelberg until his appointment at Utrecht (1908), where he founded the first pharmacological institute in Holland. Magnus studied the pharmacology and physiology of the intestines, and worked on digitalis. In 1924 he collected the works of his institute in Koerperhaltung; Koerperstellung, Gleichgewicht und Bewegung bei Saeugern, with A. de Klein (1930); and Lane Lectures on Experimental Pharmacology and Medicine (1930). Other works are Vom Urtier zum Menschen (1908) and Wilhelm Boelsche (1909).

bibliography:

S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 215–6; I. Fischer, Biographisches Lexicon, s.v.

[Nathan Koren]