Robert Magnus

MAGNUS, Robert (1873–1927), one of the greatest researchers of recent times in the field of the study of the central nervous system. The biography of Magnus is extremely poor in events. A Jew by nationality, he was born in Germany. Upon graduating from the university, he worked in physiology, but despite the fame he achieved, he could not obtain a professorship in Germany. At the suggestion of Zwaardemaker, Magnus was elected professor of pharmacology at the University of Utrecht in Holland. He held this position for over 20 years until his death. The main merit of Magnus as a physiologist is the establishment of a number of regularities in the course of reflexes that determine body position, the maintenance of equilibrium, and the execution of all kinds of movements. As a result of twenty years of persistent and systematic work, Magnus provided an almost exhaustive picture of the activity of the centers of the brainstem, reducing complex movements during the maintenance of posture and equilibrium to relatively simple reflex acts and revealing both the deep mutual connection of these reflexes and their connection with higher mechanisms. The main object of his research was decerebrated animals, in which the brain had been transected at the border of the corpora quadrigemina and the medulla oblongata (see Decerebration, Decerebrate rigidity, and Magnus-de Kleijn reflexes). Magnus attracted a group of physicians to the development of the questions mentioned above: an anatomist (de Burlet), an otiatrist (de Kleijn), a neuropathologist (Winkler), an ophthalmologist (van der Hoeve), and many other specialists who worked as a cohesive scientific team under the direct leadership of Magnus. In the last years of his life, a huge scientific institute with rich equipment was built for the conduct of his work, where the research of Magnus is being continued by his students. Besides his main works in the field of the central nervous system, Magnus is known for his classical works on the study of the motor function of the intestines. He provided a special methodology for studying intestinal motility. Magnus created a large school. Physicians, physiologists, and pharmacologists from all corners of the world worked in his laboratory. The research of Magnus has capital significance not only for the clinic (otiatry, neuropathology), but in its theoretical part, it can be considered a major achievement of the 20th century in the field of animal biology. The works of Magnus are published in a number of journals, mainly in Pflügers Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie. Furthermore, Magnus authored individual chapters in Handbuch der Physiologie, edited by A. Bethe, G. Bergmann, et al. (Berlin, 1926–28; one of the chapters jointly with A. de Kleijn), a number of chapters in other capital manuals, and two monographs: "Experimentelle Physiologie des Vestibularapparates bei Säugetieren mit Ausschluss des Menschen" (Handbuch der Neurologie des Ohres, edited by G. Alexander and O. Marburg, Vol. I, Berlin-Vienna, 1923; jointly with A. de Kleijn) and "Körperstellung" (Berlin, 1924).