| Born: | 08-15-1871 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled teacher |
Alfred FRÖHLICH (born in Vienna on August 15th, 1871), was an extraordinary professor emeritus with the title of "full professor" of pharmacology in 1938 and was a private lecturer in experimental pathology. He lived in Vienna's 19th district, Gymnasiumstrasse 58.
He was the son of the entrepreneur Siegmund Fröhlich (1832-1904) and Franziska Fröhlich, née Hermann (1847-1908), had graduated from the University of Vienna in 1895 with the academic degree "Dr. med. univ." in 1895, assisted and interned at various hospitals in Vienna until 1902, continued his education in England at the Department for Physiology at the University of Liverpool (1901-1904) and the University of Cambridge (1904-1905), habilitated in experimental pathology in Vienna in 1906, and became an assistant at the Pharmacological Institute with Prof. Hans Horst Meyer and Ernst Peter Pick. In 1908/1910 he also habilitated in pharmacology.
He was married in his first marriage in 1899 to Jenny Fröhlich (1879-1939), after their divorce in 1910 he converted from Judaism to Protestantism (evangelisch AB) in October 1910 and in his second marriage in 1916 he married the artist Adelheid Ida Charlotte Ilse, née Baronesse von Tiesenhausen (1893-1985).
In 1912 he was appointed associate professor (ao. Prof.) of pharmacology, in 1923 he received the title of "full professor" (ao. Prof, tit. o. Prof.) and retired in April of 1936, but was still giving lectures.
After the Anschluss he was dismissed for racist reasons and was forced to leave the University of Vienna in April 1938.
His assets were confiscated, his apartment was expropriated ("Aryanized") and he found a way to live with Dr. Fried in Vienna's 8th district, Piaristengasse 36/III/7 for the time being until his emigration.
He had to flee Vienna and managed to leave on August 31st, 1939 on the SS Manhattan from Southampton/UK to the USA, arriving in New York City, NY on September 7th, 1939. He worked at the May Institute for Medical Research of the Jewish Hospital of Cincinnati, a department of the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, and at the Marine Biological Laboratoriy (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Among other things, he worked in the field of the autonomic nervous system, discovered in 1901 the Fröhlich syndrome named after him (dystrophia adiposo-genitalis Fröhlich, a short-term developing obesity in children associated with growth disorders due to hormonal disturbances) and, together with Οtto Loewi, cocaine sensitization by adrenaline. He authored numerous scientific books and papers, including Handbuch der experimentellen Pharmakologie (Berlin, 1923).
He died on March 22nd, 1953 in Cincinnati, Ohio/USA.
Lit.: Archives of the University of Vienna/personnel files S 304. 315, Rectorate GZ GZ 680 I ex 1937/38, GZ 691 ex 1937/38, personnel rooster 1935/36; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/VVSt/VA/25860, OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/FLD 5344; ROEDER 1983, 344; STADLER I 2004 [1987], 376, 393; BLUMESBERGER 2002, 388; GAUGUSCH 2011, 796f.; FISCHER 1932/1933; obituary in: Science, 1953, 118 (no. 3064), 314 and in: Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, 1953, 56(16), 306; www.myheritage.at.
Herbert Posch
