Abstract
PROF. HESS is professor of physiology in the University of Zurich. Thanks to his exceptional ability. Hess, originally a school teacher, obtained medical qualifications and adopted an academic career. His great energy and far-sightedness were responsible for the establishment of the High Altitude Research Station of the Jungfraujoch. This project met a long-felt need of scientific workers and was realized in 1931 with the help of an international foundation of which the Royal Society is a member. The earliest of Hess's physiological researches to attract widespread notice was his clear statement of the principles of autonomic nerve function. The medical world of the Continent owes to him the recognition of the 'ergotropic', power-increasing action of sympathetic nerve impulses, and the energy-saving or 'histotropic' action of parasym-pathetic stimulation promoting cell growth and repair. So early as 1925 he developed the technique which he has continued to use for investigating the function of individual regions of the brain. The method is to introduce needle electrodes into the brain of a cat and to stimulate very localized areas through these electrodes. The animals survive very well; special means are used for leading in the stimulating current, so that the animals can move freely. Motor effects of the stimulation are recorded cinematographically and analysed with the help of the film record. The brain tissue between the electrodes is then destroyed by electrocoagulation. The resulting disturbances, together with the effects of stimulation, allow conclusions to be drawn on the functions of the part of the brain concerned. The latter is identified with certainty by making histo-logical preparations, plotted as an atlas of brain function. Last year Hess published a monograph which clearly outlines his conclusions on the relation of the diencephalon to motor activity. By these systematic and important researches, covering almost twenty-five years of tireless work, Prof. Hess has richly deserved the present award.
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Prof. W. R. Hess. Nature 164, 947 (1949). https://doi.org/10.1038/164947b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/164947b0