Loeb Jacques

LOEB Jacques (Jacques Loeb, 1859-1924), born in Mainz. After completing gymnasium, L. entered the University of Berlin in 1880 to study philosophy, but soon transferred to Munich, then to Strasbourg, where for 5 years he worked in the laboratory of Golts. Having received his doctorate in medicine (1884-85), he worked for a year under the famous physiologist Zuntz (Berlin). In 1886, L. was an assistant to Fick (Würzburg). At the end of 1888, he returned to Strasbourg as an assistant to Golts, and in 1889-90 he worked at the Naples Zoological Station on heteromorphosis. In 1891, he moved to America as a teacher at Bryn Mawr College. In 1892, he accepted an invitation to the newly opened University of Chicago. In 1902, he moved to the California- |^; J-J11111 "" 'Ц! University. From 1910 until the end of his life, he worked at the Rockefeller Institute (New York).-L.'s works cover the most diverse areas of experimental biology and related sciences. His earliest works concern the physiology of the brain. From the problem of free will and instincts, under the influence of the botanist Sachs, L. turned to the study of animal tropisms, which he identified with plant tropisms, providing a unified physico-chemical explanation for both, which however at the present time is shared by far from all. Parallel to tropisms, L. studied regeneration and heteromorphosis in animals and plants, attempting to approach these questions also with the physico-chemical method. In another, no less mysterious problem of his time, the activation of the egg by means of the same physico-chemical method, L. achieved brilliant results (artificial parthenogenesis). Interest in physico-chemical sciences led L. to the study of the action of salts on living cells in general and to the discovery of the phenomenon of ion antagonism, which formed the basis of the ion theory of excitation. Toward the end of his life, L. approached physical and colloid chemistry, in which he established the identity of the colloidal and crystalloid states for proteins. L.'s theory completely bypasses such basic concepts of colloid chemistry as adsorption and hydration. The basis for understanding the colloidal behavior of proteins for L. served as the Donnan principle (see Donnan equilibrium). This position of L. caused many justified objections, but nevertheless his works enriched colloid chemistry with numerous discoveries. Despite the apparent thematic disunity of L.'s works, they are connected by that rare internal unity that distinguishes great minds. L.'s works are devoted to such problems as growth, psyche, development, death, etc., i.e., the fundamental principle questions of biology. He chose not objects, but ideas, and the latter he chose not for their simplicity, but for their significance. He heroically tackled the most difficult problems of experimental biology, trying to approach them with the method of physico-chemical sciences. The study of these was therefore the logical conclusion of the circle of his works. L.'s works best illustrate the paths of synthetic biology, built by combining the most diverse methods of biological and physico-chemical sciences. L., it is true, was somewhat inclined to simplify the picture of life, reducing it as a mechanist often to a simple game of physico-chemical forces. At the same time, he was the most active and implacable enemy of any vitalistic teachings. Loeb, however, did not forget the specificity of the organism as a whole and did not consider cellular physiology the final stage in the path of explaining life. L. was a convinced, militant materialist, educated in the traditions of French materialists, he always sided with the fighters against economic and spiritual oppression.-A large number of articles by L. were published in various German and American journals, mainly in Pflügers Archiv, Biochemische Zeitschrift, Biochemical journal, Science, and in the Journal of general physiology he founded (Baltimore, from 1918). The results of L.'s experimental works and general biological views are set forth in a number of his monographic works: "The dynamics of living matter" (N.Y., 1906; Russian ed.-"Dinamika zhivogo veshchestva", Odessa, 1910); "Untersu-chungen fiber kiinstliche Parthenogenese u. das Wesen des Befruchtungsvorganges" (Lpz., 1906; supplemented English ed.-Chicago, 1913); "Mechanistic conception of life" (collection of review articles, Chicago, 1912; individual articles published in Russian); "The organism as a whole from a physico-chemical viewpoint" (N.Y., 1916; Russian ed.-"Organizm kak tseloe", M.-L., 1926); "Proteins a. the theory of colloidal behavior" (N.Y., 1922); "Forced movements, tropisms and animal conduct" (Philadelphia - London, 1918; Russian ed.-"Vynuzhdennye dvizheniya, tropizmy i povedenie zhivotnykh", Moscow, 1924); "Regeneration from a physico-chemical viewpoint" (New York, 1924).