Adolf Eugen Fick (3 September 1829 – 21 August 1901) was a German-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 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, 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 across a fluid membrane. In 1870, he was the first to measure cardiac output, 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 cardiac output.

Anecdotal

Fick's nephew, Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick, invented the contact lens.The "Kontaktbrille" of Adolf Eugen Fick (1887)
, accessed 20 April 2010

References

External links

Short biography and bibliography
in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
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