Gustav Wilhelm August Josef Ricker (November 2, 1870 – September 23, 1948) was a German physician and pathologist born in Hadamar, Hesse-Nassau.

He studied philosophy and medicine at several universities, earning his doctorate in 1893 at the University of Berlin. In 1897 he received his habilitation under Albert Thierfelder (1842-1908) at the University of Rostock, and from 1906 until 1933 was head of pathology at the city hospitals (Altstadt and Sudenburg) in Magdeburg. Afterwards, he worked as a private scholar in Berlin and Dresden.

Ricker is remembered for his Stufengesetz (law of stages), relating the intensity of neural stimulation to blood flow in capillaries,[1] and also Relationspathologie (relational pathology), in which he maintains that the root of pathological processes are a neural process and not a cellular process.

Today in Magdeburg, Gustav-Ricker-Straße and Gustav-Ricker-Krankenhaus are named in his honor.

Selected publications edit

  • Entwurf einer Relationspathologie, 1905
  • Grundlinien einer Logik der Physiologie als reiner Naturwissenschaft, 1912
  • Pathologie als Naturwissenschaft – Relationspathologie – Für Pathologen, Physiologen, Mediziner und Biologen, 1924
  • Wissenschaftstheoretische Aufsätze für Ärzte, 1936

References edit

  • Parts of this article are based on a translation of the equivalent article from the German Wikipedia.
  • Uni-Magdeburg by Horst Peter Wolff, translated biography
  1. ^ Popp, Fritz-Albert; Beloussov, L. V. (2013-03-09). Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9789401703734.

External links edit