Johannes Gad

Who was Johannes Gad?

Johannes Wilhelm Gad was a German neurophysiologist who was a native of Posen. He was father-in-law to psychiatrist Oskar Kohnstamm.

He was an assistant to Emil du Bois-Reymond at the physiological institute at the University of Berlin, and later worked under Adolf Fick at the University of Würzburg. In 1893–1894 he was a visiting lecturer of physiology at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and after returning to Germany, became departmental head at the physiological institute in Berlin. In 1895 he succeeded Ewald Hering as manager of the department of physiology at the University of Prague.

Gad is known from his work in experimental physiology. He performed numerous investigations involving electrophysiology, spinal cord functionality, the relationship between lactic acid to muscle contraction, et al. With Edward Flatau, he conducted experiments that were critical of Bastian-Bruns Law in regards to the loss of function following spinal cord injury.