Adolf Beck

Who was Adolf Beck?

Adolf Beck was a Polish Jew, physician of and professor of physiology at the University of Lwów.

He was born on 1 January 1863, in Kraków, Galicia, into a family of poor parents. During his academic career, Beck supported himself as a private tutor. Upon graduating with distinction from the gymnasium of his native city in 1884, he entered the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1888, while still a medical student, Beck gained the prize of the university by a paper on the excitability of a nerve, afterward published under the title, "O pobudliwości różnych miejsc tego samego nerwu". In 1890 he received the degree of M.D., and in the same year published the results of his extensive research on electrical processes in the brain. His papers on this subject, "Die Bestimmung der Localisation des Gehirn- und Rückenmarksfunctionen Vermittelst der Electrischen Erscheinungen," 1890, and "Weitere Untersuchungen über die Electrischen Erscheinungen des Hirnrinde der Affen und Hunde," 1891, attracted wide attention in Germany, France, and England, and won for him a prominent position among students of physiology.