1 



Hugo Kronecker. 



together into happy intercourse the heterogeneous elements of which the 

 •little group of fellow- workers consisted. 



Kronecker can hardly be described as a great physiologist. His work, 

 although abundant and sound, is in no way epoch-making. He was meticu- 

 lously accurate to the smallest detail ; this rendered the progress of his 

 investigations slow, but it also rendered it sure. His favourite subject was 

 the nature of cardiac action. It was he who first elaborated a practical 

 method for recording the contractions of the isolated fros-heart which 

 enabled the " staircase " phenomenon and the " all or none " condition to 

 be satisfactorily investigated. Later he turned his attention to the 

 mammalian heart, in which he endeavoured to demonstrate the existence 

 of a peripheral nervous centre. Himself a keen alpinist, he took an active 

 interest in the organization of the stations established in the High Alps 

 by Italian physiologists, and especially by his friend Angelo Mosso, for the 

 purpose of recording observations on the effects of life at high altitudes 

 upon the bodily functions. And in collaboration with his pupil Meltzer, he 

 added materially to our knowledge of the mechanism of deglutition ; the 

 result of the joint investigation being to demonstrate for the first time the 

 method by which a fluid bolus is carried from the mouth to the stomach. 



The devising of new methods and the designing of new forms of apparatus 

 was ever a source of pleasure to Kronecker. It is to him we owe the only 

 precise method of graduation of the sliding induction coil which we possess, 

 as well as many new and ingenious devices in other apparatus. His 

 partiality for this kind of work is evidenced by the interest he took in 

 the establishment of the Marey Institute in Paris, which was formed for the 

 demonstration of new physiological methods, and it says much for the 

 universal appreciation in which Kronecker was personally held that, 

 although a German, nay, even a Prussian, he was for several years President 

 of that essentially French institution. 



It was with the active assistance and collaboration of Kronecker that the 

 series of International Congresses of Physiology, which have proved so 

 successful, was established, although the chief credit for them must be given 

 to Sir Michael Foster and the Physiological Society of Great Britain. It 

 will be many years before such a Congress can meet again. And no one 

 would, we may be sure, have regretted more than Kronecker the estrange- 

 ment with so many of his friends which the war must necessarily have 

 produced. But he died, suddenly, at Nauheim, two months previous to that 

 fateful August of 1914 ; and if we consider the effect which would have 

 been produced upon his affectionate nature by such estrangement, his friends 

 in this country, and they were many, much as they deplore his loss, cannot 

 but think regarding him, Felix opportunitate mortis ! 



E. A, S. 



