Selmar Aschheim (4 October 1878 – 15 February 1965) was a German gynecologist who was a native resident of Berlin. Born into a Jewish family, in 1902 he received a doctorate of medicine in Freiburg, and later became director of the laboratory of the ''Universitäts-Frauenklinik'' at the Berlin

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

. In 1930 Aschheim attained the chair of biological research in

gynecology Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined are ...

at the University of Berlin. In 1933 he fled Nazi Germany and moved to Paris, where he worked in medical research at the Hôpital Beaujon. Aschheim was a specialist concerning gynecological histology and hormone research. In 1928 with endocrinologist Bernhard Zondek (1891–1966), he isolated the

gonadotropic Gonadotropins are glycoprotein hormones secreted by gonadotropic cells of the anterior pituitary of vertebrates. This family includes the mammalian hormones follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), the placental/ chor ...

hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which was discovered in the urine of pregnant women. From their research the "Aschheim-Zondek test" for pregnancy was created, which involved injection of a patient's urine into an immature laboratory mouse. If the rodent displayed an

estrous The estrous cycle (, originally ) is the set of recurring physiological changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestrous p ...

reaction, it represented a positive indication of pregnancy. The two doctors published the findings of the hormone in a treatise titled ''Das Hormon des Hypophysenvorderlappens''. At the time they believed that the gonadotrophin was produced by the

anterior pituitary A major organ of the endocrine system, the anterior pituitary (also called the adenohypophysis or pars anterior) is the glandular, anterior lobe that together with the posterior lobe (posterior pituitary, or the neurohypophysis) makes up the p ...

, however further research in the 1940s demonstrated that the placenta was responsible for the elaboration of the hormone.

References

External links

Historical perspectives in gonadotrophin therapy
by Bruno Lunenfeld

@ Who Named It {{DEFAULTSORT:Aschheim, Selmar 1878 births 1965 deaths Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to France German gynaecologists University of Freiburg alumni Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Physicians of the Charité