Walter Griesbach: Journey of a German-Jewish Scientist to New Zealand, Thesis of Medical Sciences

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Viola Angelika Schwarz

Walter Edwin Griesbach (1888-1968)

Life and Work

Medico Magistrali

I may not expect that, from the flight of fate, years have passed me by without a trace. Each one seized the spokes of my wheel, Spun it around, stopped, and left its mark. One struck me in the gall bladder, another slowly bowed my neck, Many of them laid their hands on my face: Light spread inside me, yet the day’s beams faded. That in turn had its effect on the joints of my sole and foot, My step grew heavy, my ankle began to twist. This took the pleasure from vigorous slurping and munching, It tortured my fingers in claw-like cramp. One stroked over my hair, so that it was streaked with grey, And banished me from the daughters to the mothers. The gloss fades, just as on the antique sideboard – The dowling splits, the drawer screeches: you’re out of fashion! But stand tall, with lively spirit, when the naked whirlwind Wildly tears at old trees and clumps of branches, And invisibly my little bird cuts victoriously through the thunderous song of the giant: My bird’s heart beats powerfully, Whether it is rejoicing or afraid, for it is not made to linger in limbo.

Poem by exiled poet Karl Wolfskehl, Auckland 1941 For Dr. Walter Griesbach in Dunedin, New Zealand

• A. Introduction ..........................................................................................................................
• B. Sources and method of evaluation .......................................................................................
• C. A historical survey of endocrinology up to 1940.................................................................
  • 1. The three stages of development in endocrinology ..........................................................
  • 2. Exploration of the pituitary gland ...................................................................................
  • 3. Exploration of the thyroid gland .....................................................................................
• D. Life of Walter E. Griesbach ...............................................................................................
  • 1. General remarks ..............................................................................................................
  • 2. Overview of his life ........................................................................................................
  • 3. From birth till emigration from Germany .......................................................................
    • 3.1. Ancestry, childhood and adolescence (1888-1906).................................................
    • 3.2. Student time (1906-1912), early scientific works, Army Doctor (1916-18) ...........
    • 3.3. Resident and Consultant – Research activity 1919 - 1924 ......................................
    • 3.4. Academic career and marriage to Olga Hallenstein ................................................
    • 3.5. The time from 1933 – 1938 .....................................................................................
  • 4. Emigration and time in New Zealand .............................................................................
    • 4.1. Emigration to Dunedin/New Zealand – 1938/39.....................................................
    • 4.2. Beginnings in New Zealand 1939 to 1940 .............................................................. - research work in the “Thyroid Research Department”............................................ 4.3. Years 1941 to 1944 – assistant lecturer in the “Physiology Department” and - Research Department” until part-time retirement 1959 .......................................... 4.4. Research work in the “Thyroid Research Department” and “Endocrinology
    • 4.5. Last years of his life, 1960-1968 .............................................................................
• E. Research work in Germany ................................................................................................
  • 1. General remarks ..............................................................................................................
  • 2. Institutions and co-workers ............................................................................................. - Embden .................................................................................................................... 2.1. “Chemical-Physiological Institute”, Frankfurt, Head of Institute: Gustav - Institute: Wilhelm Weintraud .................................................................................. 2.2. “Institute of Metabolism” in the Municipal Hospital of Wiesbaden, Head of - Head of Institute: Arthur Bornstein ......................................................................... 2.3. “Chemical-Physiological Institute”, General Hospital St. Georg in Hamburg,
  • 3. Publications of the years 1910-1933 ...............................................................................
    • 3.1. Research on metabolism ..........................................................................................
      • 3.1.1 Sugar metabolism.............................................................................................
      • 3.1.2 Fat metabolism .................................................................................................
      • 3.1.3 Uric acid metabolism .......................................................................................
    • 3.2. Haematological research topics ...............................................................................
    • 3.3. Clinical reports and publications on methodology ..................................................
• F. Research work in New Zealand .......................................................................................
  • 1. Institutions and co-workers ...........................................................................................
    • 1.1. “Thyroid/Endocrinology Research Department” in Dunedin ...............................
    • 1.2. Research co-workers H. D. Purves, W. E. Griesbach and T. H. Kennedy ............
  • 2. Publications of the years 1941 – 1967 ..........................................................................
    • 2.1. Correlative studies on structure and function of thyroid and pituitary glands ......
    • 2.2. Research on thyroid and pituitary gland tumours..................................................
    • 2.3. Research on the histology of the pituitary gland ...................................................
      • place of production for TSH. ..................................................................................... 2.3.1 Cellular changes correlated with changes in the thyroid gland. Search for the
      • 2.3.2 Discovery of the sites of production of all anterior pituitary hormones ........
      • 2.3.3 Supplementary studies ...................................................................................
• G. Appraisal ..........................................................................................................................
• H. Summary of results ..........................................................................................................
• I. Bibliography of Walter E. Griesbach...............................................................................
  • 1. Book chapters................................................................................................................
  • 2. Journal publications ......................................................................................................
• J. Index of sources and literature .........................................................................................
  • 1. Archival material ..........................................................................................................
    • 1.1. “Office of reparations”, Hamburg ......................................................................... - the “Pathology Institute”, Otago Medical School, Dunedin, N. Z. ....................... 1.2. Documents of the “Endocrinology Research Department” in the basement of - Dunedin, N. Z. ....................................................................................................... 1.3. “Historic Staff Room”, of the Medical Library of the University of Otago,
    • 1.4. “Hocken Archives”, Castle Street, Dunedin, N. Z. ...............................................
    • 1.5. “Hocken Library”, Leigh Street, Dunedin, N. Z. ..................................................
    • 1.6. “Institute of the history of German Jews”, Hamburg, Germany ...........................
    • 1.7. Estate of Walter E. Griesbach ...............................................................................
    • 1.8. “National Archives Of New Zealand”, Wellington, N. Z. ....................................
    • 1.9. “Records of the Dunedin Public Hospital”, Dunedin, N. Z...................................
    • 1.10. “Registrar of the University of Otago”, Dunedin, N. Z.........................................
    • 1.11. “State Archive”, Hamburg (StAH), Germany .......................................................
  • 2. Written communications ...............................................................................................
  • 3. Verbal communications ................................................................................................
  • 4. Bibliography .................................................................................................................
• K. Appendix ..........................................................................................................................
  • 1. Letter from Griesbach to Herbert D. Purves, 6.7.1948 .................................................
  • 2. Photographs...................................................................................................................
• Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................

A. Introduction

The life and work of the physician, endocrinologist, pharmacologist and metabolic pathologist Walter Edwin Griesbach is honoured for the first time in this investigation. This thesis examines not only the scientific history, but also portrays the life of a Jewish doctor and scientist in the first half of the twentieth century. The interweaving of his personal fate with the National Socialist dictatorship is a special aim of this investigation, for it clearly shows in what a cruel and inhuman way the National Socialists in Germany treated their victims. Mere figures and statistics cannot describe the realities of life of a Jewish citizen at that time; only a description of the consequences of contempt and persecution can do justice to individual cases. So the first part of the work examines the personal fate of Griesbach as it was affected by the State measures of suppression. In Chapter D (describing Griesbach’s life), the study concentrates chronologically on the topics of “Third Reich”, “Emigration” and “New Start in New Zealand”. It exemplifies the situation of physicians in the Third Reich, during and after emigration, and their re- establishment in other countries. The medical faculty of the University of Hamburg has in recent years published several works on this theme, and has shown in exhibitions the fate of former doctors of the University. At present further dissertations are being written under the guidance of Professors Dr. Ursula Weisser, Dr. Hendrik van den Bussche and Dr. Werner Selberg on the life of former Jewish physicians at the University of Hamburg 1. The works mentioned look at the lives and works of colleagues of Walter Edwin Griesbach during his time at the “General Hospital St. Georg” in Hamburg^2. The current work was suggested by Professor Dr. Hans-Erhard Bock, a colleague of Griesbach in the “General Hospital St. Georg” during the twenties. Griesbach was at the time of their association a Senior Consultant at the hospital, and Bock a medical intern. The investigation was also enthusiastically encouraged and supported by Professor Dr. Ekkehard Kallee. He had met Griesbach at the 1960 Conference on Internal Medicine in Wiesbaden. The two professors therefore knew Griesbach during different times and periods of his medical and scientific career. Professor Bock vividly remembers Griesbach’s investigations

(^1) Dissertation of Korinna Kauder on Arthur Bornstein (supervised by Prof. Dr. Ursula Weisser) and dissertation of Matthias Andrae on Arthur Lippmann (supervised by Prof. Dr. Hendrik van den Bussche). 2 „Allgemeines Krankenhaus St. Georg“, Lohmühlenstrasse 5, Hamburg, Germany

An assessment of his person and work in Chapter G, and a summary of the results in Chapter H, close the main part of this investigation. Preceding the Index of sources and literature cited, Chapter I contains the first complete personal bibliography of Griesbach, covering one book and 76 scientific articles. In the appendix there is a hand-written letter of Griesbach to his New Zealand colleague Herbert D. Purves, dated 06.07.1948, plus four photographs of research colleagues of Griesbach from his time in Germany and New Zealand.

B. Sources and method of evaluation

In this investigation, mainly three groups of sources were used. The first group includes official documents such as birth-, wedding-, naturalisation-certificates, awards and photographs. In general, they reflect these facts correctly apart from typographical errors and the possibility of accidental or deliberate alterations. Apart from falsified documents, subjective implications cannot be found in these sources and they are highly reliable and predictive. They are therefore used in this investigation to verify and catalogue Griesbach’s life and work. The second group of sources were letters, curricula vitae, memoranda, reports, petitions and expert opinions. It is of no importance whether these sources are hand-written or printed, as they are authentic but can lead to subjective interpretations of events. An objective statement of fact, which often can not be verified, might therefore reflect the subjective interpretation, i.e. the feelings of the person who wrote the letter. As the aim of an investigation has to be the factual description of events, theses sources can only be used with caution. The third group of sources, which were predominately used in this investigation, were the results of written and verbal questions put to contemporaries of Walter and Olga Griesbach. In this study, a long time period – 25 years – lay between the death of Griesbach (1968) and the interviews, which were performed in 1993/1994. The dangers and sources of error of this type of source used are obvious. The memories of more than 25 years after the occurrence are neither exact nor complete. Own wishes and expectations become mixed with memories; sympathy and antipathy affect the content of the statements. Mostly, the statements are positively influenced as they predominately derive from persons, who like to recall pleasant memories. The immense personal involvement in these recollections causes an enormous heterogeneity of the results and the lack of control of their correctness can lead to systematic errors. Nevertheless, sources of this nature can be used in this sort of investigation and they help to portray the person according to his thoughts and actions. If their limited reliability is kept in mind, these sources can furnish important complementally information about a person. A mail questionnaire was hereby a useful tool. Special attention was given to conflicting statements, or statements given by only one person alone. These were therefore marked in the text as “unknown” or “unsubstantiated statement”. Collectively, the statements given for this investigation were very helpful in elucidating Griesbach’s personality and to confirm facts, and were rarely contradictory. In only one instance did a person not want to give an opinion, which did not concerned Walter Griesbach but his wife Olga Griesbach.

C. A historical survey of endocrinology up to 1940

1. The three stages of development in endocrinology

The history of endocrinology can be divided into three phases^6. The first phase, from 1652 until 1839, covers the prehistory of endocrinology, which is associated with the names of Thomas Wharton, Théophile de Bordeu, Julien-César Legallois and Johannes Müller^7. Until the end of the 18th^ century, hormones weren’t known to be chemically definable substances. Until the beginning of the 17th^ century, there was no basis for assuming the existence of internal secretions, as the description of the circulation by William Harvey did not appear until 1628 when he postulated the secretion of special substances in the circulating blood 8. Thomas Wharton’s publication “Adenographia” from 1656, which was based on Harvey’s previous work, dealt mainly with the anatomy of glands and therefore helped much to advance endocrinological research^9. Théophile de Bordeu was the first scientist, who publicly assumed in 1775 a sort of internal secretion, instead of a “Consensus partium” based on a neuronal mechanism^10. Unfortunately, his lectures, which were enlarged and expanded by Julien-César Legallois, were overlooked at the time. In 1830 Johannes Müller was the first to make a distinction between secretion and excretion, and collectively called the spleen, adrenal glands, thyroid gland, thymus and placenta “blood vessel-knots”^11. The second phase in the history of endocrinology was from 1839 to 1889, when the main definitions of endocrinology were enunciated^12. Arnold Adolph Berthold could prove in 1849 the existence of internal secretion by transplanting testes in roosters. Therefore, nowadays the birth year of endocrinology is set at 1849, and Berthold is considered its experimental founder^13. A further milestone was Claude Bernard’s differentiation in 1855 between an external and an internal secretion in the liver, such as the external secretion of bile and the internal secretion of dextrose. Because of this differentiation, Bernard is to be considered the founder of the

(^6) Schönwetter (1968), 62 (^7) The year 1652 is marked by the first lectures of T. Wharton - the basis for his famous book “Adenographia”; see Abderhalden (1950-1952), 4545f. 8 9 L.c. 4545. 10 L.c. 4540. 11 Leicester (1974), 224. 12 Abderhalden (1950-52), 4546. 13 Schönwetter (1968), 62. Leicester (1974), 224.

doctrine of internal secretion^14. The importance of internal secretion for medicine became more noteworthy, when Charles-Edouard Brown-Séquard made experiments on himself with extracts of bull testes. Brown-Séquard was a very confident representative of the doctrine of internal secretion, and showed already in 1869, that all glands with or without ducts produce substances which are secreted into the blood and which would cause illness if missing^15. In the same year that Brown-Séquard published the experiments on himself, Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski proved that the cause of Diabetes mellitus is a pancreatic disorder, a fact which strengthened the doctrine even more 16. During the third phase of the development of endocrinology, research concentrated on single endocrine organs and their hormones^17. In 1900, Leonid Wassiljew Ssobolew concluded from his experiments, that the hormone was produced in the islets of the pancreas, and suggested that it be extracted from them. Georg Ludwig Zuelzer was accordingly able to treat patients suffering from Diabetes mellitus in 1908 with these extracts. It was Charles Herbert Best and Frederick Grant Banting, who extracted insulin in 1921 18. The first hormone to be isolated in crystalline form was adrenaline, which was accomplished independently by Jokichi Takamine and Thomas Bell Aldrich in 1901 19 , and three years later it was synthesized by Friedrich Stolz and H. D. Dakin. This was the first synthetic production of a hormone^20. The designation “hormone” wasn’t introduced into the doctrine of internal secretion until 1905 by Ernest Henry Starling 21 , and in the same year the existence of another hormone, gastrin was proved by J. S. Edkins^22. In 1906 the hormone oxytocin was identified by Henry Hallet Dale and has been used in obstetrics ever since the year 1909^23. It was Nicola Pende who in 1922, at the meeting of the Italian Society for Internal Medicine, for the first time called the young science of internal secretion “endocrinology” 24. The next hormone to be discovered was the crystalline thyroid hormone, which was extracted from thyroid glands by E. Kendall in 1914. But it wasn’t until 1927 that Charles Robert Harington and Georg Barger succeeded in synthesizing thyroxine^25. The first hormone of the anterior pituitary gland, somatotropic

(^14) L.c. (^15) L.c. (^16) Saffran (1992), 126. (^17) Schönwetter (1968), 62. (^18) Saffran (1992), 132. (^19) Vague (1983), 2757. (^20) Leicester (1974), 227. (^21) Karlson (1982), 3-14. (^22) Vague (1983), 2757. (^23) L.c. 2768. (^24) L.c. 2758. (^25) Hall, Glick (1976), 231.

structure and the physiology of hormones provided a great stimulus to endocrinology and thus opened up new horizons.

2. Exploration of the pituitary gland

The pituitary gland was already known as an organ in ancient times. Galen postulated its function to be the clearing of mucus produced by the brain. Catarrh of the upper respiratory system would therefore be caused by an excessive production of mucus from the pituitary gland^39. Andreas Vesal agreed with Galen’s opinion and called the gland in connection with its supposed function “Glans cerebri pituitam excipiens”^40. Galen’s theory was accepted until Conrad Viktor Schneider proved it to be wrong in 1660^41. Schneider’s opinion was supported by Richard Lower who wrote in 1672, that the product of the pituitary gland would reach the blood circulation via the “wonder net of the carotids”^42. In his dissertation “De basi encephali et originibus nervorum cranio egredientium libri V”, Samuel Thomas Soemmering used the contemporary designation “Hypophysis cerebri” 43 in 1778 for the first time. With regard to the organ structure the researchers Giovanni Santorini, Jacques-Bénigne Wibslow and Albrecht von Haller described the subdivision of the organ into an anterior and a posterior lobe at the beginning of the 18th^ century^44. At the end of the 18th^ century and the beginning of the 19th^ century different opinions were expressed concerning the still unknown function of the organ. Johann Friedrich Meckel assumed that the pituitary gland produced a fluid which nourished the brain 45. Franz Joseph Gall, the founder of phrenology, Carl Gustav and Ernst Burdach assumed different functions of the pituitary gland, whether this be that of a large ganglion, the head end of the nervus sympathicus or that of the top end of the spinal chord 46. In 1810 Joseph Wenzel suspected the cause of epilepsy to be illness in the pituitary gland^47. The first descriptions of a pituitary gland tumour that was accompanied by amaurosis 48 originated from P. Rayer and Ward in

1823. The description of the embryological development by H. Rathke led to the breakthrough in the identification of the pituitary, which was now regarded as a gland 49. The

(^39) Medvei (1982), 824. (^40) Schoenwetter (1968), 32. (^41) L.c. (^42) L.c. 33. (^43) L.c. 32. (^44) L.c. (^45) L.c. 33. (^46) Abderhalden (1950-52), 4539. (^47) Schönwetter (1968), 34. (^48) Hirsch (1952), 268 (^49) Medvei (1982), 824.