Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1988-01-01 / 1. szám

^Special ^eature-ÖDf-ÍElje-jMimtlj suchungsverfahren fur das chemische Laboratorium Stuttgart, 1936). Elemer Schulek (1893-1964) was Lajos Winkler’s assistant from 1918. In 1926 as a Rockefeller fellow Schulek made a study tour of the United States and some European countries to in­vestigate their pharmaceutical industries. Appointed the head of the Chemistry Division of the National Institute of Health in Budapest in 1927, and in 1944 professor of inorganic and analytical chemistry at Budapest University, Elemer Schulek achieved meritorious results in the chemistry and application of halogen cyanides and interhalogens. His use of his own methods to research the systems of hydrogen peroxide and sulphuric acid is also noteworthy. Schulek, according to his critics, created solid foun­dations for the up-to-date analysis of drugs. His publications ap­peared in English, German, and Hungarian. One of his major works was published under the title Az általános kvantitatív analitikai kémia elvi alapjai es módszerei. (Co-author: Zoltán László Szabó. Budapest, 1966 — Theoretical foundations and methods of general quantitative analytical chemistry). Aladar Buzagh (1895-1962) graduated from the Budapest University of Technical Sciences and was appointed research assis­tant at Budapest (Peter Pázmány) University. Professor Wolfgang Ostwald, the founder of colloid chemistry, invited Buzagh to Leip­zig to become his assistant where Buzagh worked until 1925. Buzagh improved Ostwald’s colloid chemistry research results and established the Ostwald-Buzagh sediment rule, as well as the Ostwald-Buzagh continuity theory. In 1939 Aladar Buzagh made a lecture tour of the United States. He also elaborated a quan­titative method for measuring adhesion. His publications on col­loid chemistry (Kolloidik. Eine Einführung in die Kolloid­wissenschaft. Dresden, 1936; Colloid Systems. London, 1937) met with a very favorable reception throughout the world. Colloid chemistry has been for decades in the focus of Hungarian scientists, a case in point being Richard Zsigmondy who as early as 1925 received a Nobel Prize for chemistry for the elucidation of the heterogeneous nature of colloidal solutions. Most industrially developed countries of the world granted patents for József Varga’s (1891-1956) inventions in mineral oil industry. Interestingly, József Varga participated in Hungary’s public life between 1939 and 1943 in his capacity as minister of industry, later as minister of commerce and transportation, and finally as a member of parliament. At the beginning of his career, Varga occupied himself with the utilization of bauxites in the manufacture of cement. He obtained his most significant results in the preparation of synthetic gasoline and propellants. He is especially remembered in professional circles for the high-pressure hydrogenation of coal, and mineral oil. In this field his interna­tionally valued discovery was the so-called “Varga-Effect” (hydrogen sulphide effect). After the conclusion of World War II Varga invented the hydro-cracking process named after him for the hydrogenation of mineral oils and tars containing much asphalt under medium pressure. For the further development of his hydro-cracking process the Hungarian-East German Varga Research Society was formed. Varga published many articles in Hungary and abroad dealing with the results of his investiga­tions. His two-volume set Kémiai technológia (Chemical technology, prepared with Karoly Polinszky. Budapest, 1953-1961) deserves special mention. Géza Zemplen (1883-1956) received his doctorate from the Budapest University in 1904. Afterwards he joined the research staff of Emil Abderhalden (1877-1950) in Berlin and studied the chemistry of enzymes. Later, also in Berlin, Zemplen became a close associate of Emil Fischer (1852-1919) and with Fischer engaged in the synthesis of amino acids. Geza Zemplen founded the first school of organic chemistry in Hungary. He performed internationally acknowledged research in the fields of car­bohydrates and glycosides. He invented the Zemplen saponifica­tion method and a new technique for sugar decomposition bear­ing his name. His extensive treatise of carbohydrates (Kohlenhydrate. Berlin, Wien, 1922. XXIV, 1101 p.) ranks among his most important publications. Best known in biochemistry, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (b. 1893, Budapest) studied at the Budapest and Cambridge universities. Working at Cambridge University (1927, 1929) and at the Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Minnesota (1928) he isolated hexuronic acid (now called ascorbic acid or Vitamin C) from plant juice and adrenal gland extracts. Between 1931 and 1945 he taught medical chemistry at Szeged University. Szent-Gyorgyi was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysts of fumaric acid. He was the first to isolate vitamin C from paprika. Szent-Gyorgyi discovered a protein in muscle that he named “actin.” In 1945 he was appointed professor of biochemistry at Budapest Univer­sity. Emigrating to the U.S. in 1947, he became director of the Institute of Muscle Research at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. At the Institute he conducted investiga­tions into the biochemistry of muscular action and into the causes of cell division, obtaining highly important results in the fields of cell respiration, the theory of cell oxidation, etc. He published many books and articles on biochemistry in English, German, and Hungarian. Among his most essential works are On Oxidation, Fermentation, Vitamins, Health, and Disease (1940), Chemical Physiology of Contractions in Body and Heart Muscle (1953), and Introduction to a Submolecular Biology (1960). Since the mid-thirties Szent-Gyorgyi has exerted great in­fluence upon his disciples in Hungary and elsewhere. Several of his closest research associates have produced internationally recognized studies: Bruno F. Straub (b. 1914), for one, ranks high among Szent-Gyorgyi’s former assistants. A great number of biochemists — including the late Imre Szörényi (1901-1959) and particularly Bruno Straub — have engaged in protein research. As a Rockefeller fellow, Straub worked at Cambridge University from 1937 to 1939. After the war he taught biochemistry at Szeged (1945-1949) then medical chemistry at the Budapest University of Medical Sciences. In 1971 he was appointed Director General of the newly organized Szegedi Biológiai Kutató Központ (Szeg­—continued next page JANUARY 1988 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 21

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