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Anton Coenen, Wioleta WalentowskaAdolf Beck (1863-1942), Famous neuroscientist and humanist, and father of Henryk Beck
Adolf Beck (1863-1942) was a famous scientist and
eminent humanist as well as the pater familias of a
family, with a son, Henryk, with great scientific and
artistic talents and two courageous daughters. The course of Beck’s scientific
and personnel life started at the Jagiellonian
University at Kraków and came to a full
employment at the Medical University of Lwów,
at that time a turbulent city. However, before I begin with the life course and
the significance of Adolf Beck, I will indicate how a scientist from remote The
Netherlands came on the traces of the Polish Beck family. In the beginning of
the sixties of last century I started with a study in biology at the Radboud University in Nijmegen and I made soon a choice for
neuroscience. At the Medical Faculty of this University I performed my first electrical recordings of the
brains of cats, with primitive equipment and self-made electrodes. On a plate
on which recording electrodes were showed, the name of an unknown Adolph Beck
appeared and I used this knowledge by the production of my own electrodes. On a
physiological conference in Munich in 1971 I met the late English professor
Mary A.B. Brazier (1904-1995), the expert in the history of electrical brain
recordings. She also knew scientists who used or has used electrophysiological
techniques and learned me much more about these techniques and scientists.
Professor Brazier had already published papers on the history of
neurophysiology in which the name of Beck appeared and at that time she was
even translating the Polish dissertation of Beck into English. She told me that
this man was important for the introduction of electroencephalography, although
most scientists had not heard of him. In 1971 I finished my work of the cat
brain with relevant papers about the «gating theory of sleep», on which I got
my PhD. Than I moved to the Department of Psychology
of the same university to study the relationship between electrical brain
activity and behavior in rats, more or less in the way Beck had done. Soon
after this I got a Polish student from Kraków,
the later Jagiellonian professor Jan Kaiser, who came
to my department. After his sabbatical stay we started common
psychophysiological projects on our universities. This was the beginning of my
frequent visits to the Jagiellonian University, where
I later became a visiting professor. It was in that time that I realized that
Adolf Beck was an alumnus of Jagiellonian, where he
had performed significant work as a PhD student, getting there his doctor’s
title. With the dissertation of Beck under my arm, I hoped to find much more
about this famous scientist. To my surprise, however, Adolf Beck was not more
than a footnote in the history of the Jagiellonian
University. Only some researchers of Beck’s old department, such as Stanisław Konturek, Wiesław Pawlik and the late Ryszard Bilski, could vaguely
remember Beck and his work. But even they did not see the value of Beck’s brain
work which he had done in a nearby laboratory. One of the reasons was that
Adolf Beck moved to the University of Lwów on
a relatively young age, while after the Second World War contacts between
scientists of the previous sister universities Kraków
and Lwów, now separated by strict borders, became scarce. Also the subsequent division of Europe, with a
distance between East and West Europe is the cause that the Pole Beck remained
unknown to the scientific public. In October 1996, just more than 100 years
later than Beck, I travelled to Lviv to collect more
information about him. At the university there, I met professor
Oksana Zayachkivska, who appeared to be a
Beck-expert, with already a collection of relevant information of Beck’s Lwów-time. This meeting launched an extended search
for new historic and documentary material about the scientific and personal
life of Beck, including his family. Adolf Beck was born as Abraham Chaim Beck in Kraków on the first of January 1863. He came to
earth in a district close to the Jewish quarter Kazimierz in a Yiddish speaking
sober living family of a Jewish baker. The ancestors of the Beck family came
originally from diamant cutters from Amsterdam. The
young Adolf left in 1883 with success the gymnasium Św.
Jacka in his birthplace, to be enrolled as a student
in the Jagiellonian University, where he studied
medicine from 1884 till 1889. Under the famous physiology professor Napoleon Cybulski he graduated cum laude to medical doctor in 1890.
In his influential dissertation and interest-evoking papers, Beck described, as
one of the first researchers, the recording of the electrical brain activity of
animals. This work led to the view that studying the electrical brain activity
is helpful to understand the functioning of the brain. Moreover Beck brought up
two new elements in his research: the localization of senses with evoked brain
potentials and the cessation of electrical brain waves upon sensory
stimulation. Thus, as the first, he described the desynchronization of the
electric brain activity. For these findings he was nominated three times for
the Nobel price, but he never got this high honor. For several reasons Beck’s
work disappeared in oblivion. Presently, however, the research of Beck is
regarded as so valuable that he is back into remembrance and he is even
recognized as an important pioneer and co-founder of electroencephalography.
Along with his brain work the scientific activity of Beck was extended to
several fields of physiology. In 1894 he got his «venia
legendi» («habilitation») in physiology at the Jagiellonian University with a thesis titled «Changes in blood
pressure in vessels». Given all his important achievements at the university of Kraków it was
not amazing that a professorate came nearby! Already in May 1895 at the age of 32 the Jagiellonian alumnus Adolf Beck accepted the offer to be
appointed professor in physiology at the University of Lemberg
in Lwów, at that time the capital of Polish
Galicia in the Austrian sector of partitioned Poland. The universities of the
two capitals in Galicia, Kraków and Lwów, could be regarded as sister universities, with
many contacts. Beck started with energy and enthusiasm building up the new
Department of Physiology at the Medical Faculty. He organized this department
in a similar style as in his Alma Mater. Beck started to equip a physiological
laboratory provided with the newest registration devices for brain activity.
Besides the main direction of electrophysiology and neuroscience, his interests
regarded other aspects of physiology. To create a broad department of
physiology, Beck succeeded to form a staff with expertise in diverging aspects
of physiology. Moreover, teaching and education were important issues for Beck
and he appreciated direct contacts with students. He propagated teaching of
physiology by experimental demonstrations. Therefore he equipped the lecture
hall with an expensive multifunctional time projector, ensuring that he could
demonstrate lively the dynamics of physiological processes. In his role of
teacher and researcher Beck created the famous School of Physiology at the
University of Lemberg, which has delivered various
prominent physiologists. In October 1895 Beck gave his inaugural address with a
lecture, translated in English, «The phenomena of life and the ways of
investigating it». In his maiden speech he announced his plans with respect to
research topics, strategies, innovations and teaching approaches. He did this
by starting from a philosophical-historical perspective, but he translated his
views into pragmatic and feasible approaches. Years later he revealed to his
second daughter Jadwiga Beck-Zakrzewska how important
this first lecture as a professor for him was, and how long he had worked on
it. His success at the University of Lwów
demonstrated his visionary views. He performed and published multiple
experiments, and gave many lectures for a full lecture hall. It was
nevertheless unavoidable that this intelligent, wise and visionary man soon was
called as the Dean of the Medical Faculty. That was in the period 1904-1905;
years later followed by his nomination as Rector of the University in
1912-1913. A period of intensive research and reading lectures
followed along with the leadership over the Department of Physiology. Beck was
deeply involved in scientific life and conducted many attractive practical
courses. Beck was an enthusiastic teacher and appreciated by his students. All
the time he lived in Asnyka street 4 (presently Bohomoltsia 4) in the shadow of the university. He mostly
did his scientific writings at home. Despite all his scientific endeavors, Beck
had a strong familial and social life. He was interested in music and played
violin, whereby he was accompanied by his wife Regina Mandelbaum on the piano.
In the mean time the Beck family was extended with
son Henryk, born in 1896 directly when the family
arrived in Lwów and second daughter Jadwiga
born in 1901. The oldest daughter Zofia was already
born in Kraków, just before the family moved
to Lwów. There was a warm family life with a
father telling stories, the singing of the children and together music playing.
Children grew up with science, music and art. In the words of Henryk «father molded me as if in plasticine».
Already as a young boy Henryk played piano and violin
with his parents, although his main passions were football playing, and later
mountain climbing, car driving and in particular painting. The turbulent history of Lemberg-Lemberik-Lwów-Lviv
is expressed in the life of the Beck family. The relative rest in Polish
Galicia disappeared at the start of the first World
War when its capital Lwów was occupied by
Russian troops. That was in the year 1914 during Beck’s second term as Rector
of the university. Beck did everything what was in his power to preserve all
holdings of the university in order to continue scientific work and education.
But this came to an end when professor Beck, together with many other leading
scientists and representatives of the city, was arrested by the Russian army
and imprisoned in a camp in Kiev. By the efforts of the Russian Nobel laureate
Ivan Pavlov, a friend of Beck’s teacher Cybulsky,
along with diplomatic activities of the Red Cross, Beck was released in August
1915 and arrived back in Lwów after a long
travelling in 1916. Directly he became again Dean of the Medical Faculty, from
1916 till 1917. World War I ended with a collapse of the Habsburg, the German
and the Russian empires and the consequence was that an independent Poland came
into being. This was realized in the year 1919. In this glorious year for
Poland, Beck lost his mentor and friend Napoleon Cybulski,
with whom he had performed many valuable experiments and had written an
important textbook on human physiology. In the time that Beck was absent in Lwów his son Henryk
together with his friend Sawczyński continued
Beck’s scientific activities regarding the active conduction of electrical
impulses over the nerves, testing the so-called «avalanche theory». In 1932 Beck retired and gave the leadership of the
Department to his former student Wiktor Tychowsky. In 1935 he received a honorary degree for his high merits in his 40 years
long affiliation to the University of Lwów.
Moreover, he received several titles and awards from scientific societies and
institutions. Dramatic was the death of his wife Regina in 1938 and his oldest
daughter Zofia in 1939. Despite these tragic incidents
Adolf Beck was with his 76 years in a good mental spirit and a brilliant
speaker, often at work for his previous department. And than came the second
World War. Life for Beck became even more troubled and dangerous as in the first World War. The drama’s for the Beck family started
with the arrest by the Gestapo of professor Kazimierz Zakrzewski,
the husband of Beck’s second daughter Jadwiga, and his subsequent execution in Palmiry in the beginning of 1941. But Beck himself in Lwów was also under great danger. The city was
occupied by the Nazis and Beck who was of Jewish origin suffered many
humiliations. When the extermination of the Jews started and it became too
dangerous, a former colleague, doctor Zdzisław Bieliński,
took care after his old teacher. He decided to bring him to a safe hiding place
at the «Aryan side» of the city. Bieliński
recalled that trip vividly: «I decided to take him in a horse coach. I realized
that it increased the danger, but there was no other way. Next to me was
sitting Adolf Beck, a man with classical Jewish racial features and a
patriarchal beard. These few kilometers seemed to me the longest and most
dangerous in my life. If someone stopped us, it would surely mean a torturous
death». Beck was safe for a while, but his hiding place was shortly later
discovered by blackmailers. Directly, Bieliński
and Beck’s son Henryk took the old and than ill Beck to the hospital. Despite his illness the
Germans tried to arrest him, but at the last minute Henryk
managed to hand his father a capsule with potassium cyanide. This gave him the
opportunity to take his life before the Nazis could send him to the gas
chambers. In the chaos of Beck’s arrest and suicide, eye-witnesses Henryk and Bieliński could
escape but both died shortly thereafter. Bieliński
was killed in 1945 by a bomb package brought to him by fake officers in Polish
uniforms, whereas Henryk Beck died on a massive heart
failure in 1946. Presumably, that was due to his life threatening struggle in
the Warsaw Uprising. Hence the exact day of Adolf Beck’s death in August 1942
got lost and it is also not known where he is buried or
has a grave. Jadwiga finished her daughter’s memoirs to her father as
following: «His death was painfully tragic: in 1942, in Lwów,
when this magnificent, strong man had reached the age of 80, after a beautiful
and dedicated life, he took poison at the moment when the Germans came for
him». It is more than 150 years ago that Adolf Beck was born
in Kraków and started there his impressive
career which came to a unique height in Lwów.
In that city he lived for a long time with his entire family. Although he had
already developed a methodology for brain research in his graduation work in Kraków, he discovered several new findings with this
EEG technique in Lwów; a technique which is
presently still one of the most applied methodologies for brain investigations.
Unfortunately, Beck has not obtained full credits for his significant and
important research. After the second World War the
east part of Galicia with Lwów, now Lviv, was annexed by the Soviet Union and the regime in
Moscow broke completely with electrophysiological research. The Soviet regime
made a choice for the Pavlovian concept, better fitting in its concepts and
ideas. This led to an ongoing negation for physiologists studying electrical
brain functions, while West-Europe scientists working in these fields did not
longer have contacts with their East colleagues. This had the implication that
their research slowly fell into oblivion, and this happened also to Beck and
his work. Nowadays, interest for the work of the pioneers of
electroencephalography, such as Adolf Beck, is again growing, and their
importance for the development of this methodology is recognized. Interest
began to raise when Mary Brazier published about Beck
and translated his doctoral thesis in English, but this result was not too
impressive. More recently, several publications have shed light on the
scientific and personnel life of Adolf Beck, as well as on the character of
this great scientist, teacher and man. The outstanding personality of Adolf
Beck and his pioneer work attracts more and more attention in the scientific
world. Anton M.L. Coenen,
Donders Centre for Cognition, Radboud
University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, assisted by Wioleta
Walentowska, Jagiellonian
University, Kraków, Poland and Ghent
University, Belgium Beck, A.: Die Bestimmung der Localisation der Gehirn- und
Rückenmarksfunctionen vermittelst
der elektrischen Erscheinungen. Centralblatt für Physiologie 4: 473-476,
1890. Beck, A.: The determination of localizations in the brain
and spinal cord with the
aid of electrical
phenomena. Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis (Ed. M.A.B. Brazier), Suppl. 3: 7-55, 1973. Beck Zakrzewska,
J.: A daughter’s memories of Adolf Beck.
In: Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis (Ed. M.A. B. Brazier), Suppl. 3: 57-59, 1973. Brazier, M.A.B: The historical development of neurophysiology. In: Handbook of Physiology
Vol. 1, Section 1: Neurophysiology (Eds. J. Field, H.W. Magoun, V.E. Hall), American Physiological Society, Washington D.C., pp. 47-58, 1959. Brazier, M.A.B.: The brain yields
its electricity. In: A history of
neurophysiology in the 19th century. Raven Press, New
York, pp. 185-248, 1988. Coenen, A.M.L.: History of electroencephalography.
Sleep-Wake Research in the Netherlands
21: 40-47, 2010 Coenen, A.M.L., Vendrik, A.J.H.: Determination of the transfer
ratio of cat’s geniculate neurons through quasi-intracellular recordings and the relation
with the level of alertness.
Experimental Brain Research 14, 227-242, 1972. Coenen, A.M.L: Neuronal activities underlying the electroencephalogram and evoked potentials of sleeping and
waking: implications for information processing. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 19, 447-463, 1995. Coenen, A., Zayachkivsky, O., Bilski, R.: In the footsteps
of Beck: the desynchronization of the electroencephalogram.
Electroencephalography and clinical Neurophysiology 106:
330-335, 1998. Coenen, A., Zayachkivska, O., Konturek, S., Pawlik, W.: Adolf Beck, co-founder of the EEG: an
essay in honour of his
150th birthday. - Kraków
(Poland), Lviv (Ukraine), Nijmegen (The Netherlands). – Digitalis/Biblioscope (Utrecht), 2013. Jaworska, J.: Henryka Becka ‘Bunkier 1944 roku’. Żydowski Institut Historyczny, Ossolineum, Wrocław, 1982. Pawlik, W.W., Konturek, S.J., Bilski, R.: Napoleon Cybulski – Polish pioneer in developing of
the device for measuring blood
flow velocity. Journal of Physiology
and Pharmacology 57 Suppl. 1: 107-118, 2006. Zayachkivska, O.: The world of
Adolf Beck by eyes of
Henryk Beck: total unofficial. Lviv: Bak, 2013. Zayachkivska, O., Gzegotsky, M., Coenen,
A.: Impact on electroencephalography of Adolf Beck, a prominent
Polish scientist and founder of
the Lviv School of Physiology.
International Journal of Psychophysiology 85: 3-6,
2012. |
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