Adolf Eugen Fick (3 September 1829 – 21 August 1901) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

-born

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

and

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out chemical and ...

Early life and education

Fick began his work in the formal study of

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

before realising an aptitude for medicine. He then earned his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in medicine from the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...

in 1851. As a fresh medical graduate, he began his work as a prosector.The Virtual Laboratory: Fick, Adolf Eugen
accessed 5 February 2006 He died in

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...

at age 71.

Career

In 1855, he introduced

Fick's laws of diffusion Fick's laws of diffusion describe diffusion and were first posited by Adolf Fick in 1855 on the basis of largely experimental results. They can be used to solve for the diffusion coefficient, . Fick's first law can be used to derive his second ...

, which govern the

diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...

of a

gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

across a fluid membrane. In 1870, he was the first to measure

cardiac output In cardiac physiology, cardiac output (CO), also known as heart output and often denoted by the symbols Q, \dot Q, or \dot Q_ , edited by Catherine E. Williamson, Phillip Bennett is the volumetric flow rate of the heart's pumping output: tha ...

, using what is now called the Fick principle. Fick managed to double-publish his law of diffusion, as it applied equally to physiology and physics. His work led to the development of the direct Fick method for measuring

Anecdotal

Fick's nephew,

Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick (22 February 1852 – 11 February 1937) was a German ophthalmologist who invented the contact lens. He was the nephew of the German physiologist Adolf Eugen Fick, and the son of the German anatomy professor Franz Ludwi ...

, invented the

contact lens Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic ...

.The "Kontaktbrille" of Adolf Eugen Fick (1887)
, accessed 20 April 2010

References

External links

Short biography and bibliography
in the

Virtual Laboratory The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. T ...

of the

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (German: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) is a scientific research institute founded in March 1994. It is dedicated to addressing fundamental questions of the history of knowled ...

Science Quotes by Adolf Eugen Fick
(todayinsci.com) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fick, Adolf Eugen 1829 births 1901 deaths Alldeutscher Verband members German biophysicists German physiologists Physicians from Kassel People from the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel University of Marburg alumni Academic staff of the University of Würzburg Academic staff of the University of Zurich Recipients of the Cothenius Medal