Fritz Köberle

Fritz Köberle (October 1, 1910 in

protozoan

.

Life

Fritz Köberle was born in

wounds, and performing more than four thousand autopsies. After the war, Köberle returned to the University of Münster as Privatdozent, continuing his activities as professor and researcher of medical pathology until 1945. He returned shortly to the University of Vienna, and, in 1946, accepted a post as director of the Serological and Pathological Institute of the General Hospital of St. Pölten

, Lower Austria.

In 1952, he received an invitation which would radically change his personal and scientific life. A new medical school was being established by the University of São Paulo in Ribeirão Preto, in the hinterland of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The main objective of the state government was to increase the number of physicians in the rapidly developing hinterland, and its first dean, Dr. Zeferino Vaz, a parasitologist, medical research and professor of the University, wished to create a favorable environment for high quality medical research and teaching in the new school. With this in mind, Vaz invited a number of foreign researchers to become chairmen of the basic and clinical departments, and Fritz Köberle had a good recommendation by Prof. Henrique da Rocha Lima, a Brazilian medical researcher who had studied in Germany. Dr. Köberle accepted an invitation and moved with his family to the Medical School of Ribeirão Preto in 1953. He soon organized the Department of Pathology, became its chairman, and began to assemble a small group of Brazilian researchers.

Works

While in Ribeirão Preto, Köberle noted that a promising field of research in pathology for the new department and himself could be

idiopathic megaesophagus and Chagas megaesophagus appeared to have the same etiology, namely the degeneration

of the Auerbach's myoenteric plexus.

Studying the typical features of the Chagasic

neurogenic

theory.

Thus, with his classical and detailed scientific studies, Köberle proposed for the first time a unified and radically different (and polemical) view of the etiopathogeny of Chagas disease, characterizing it as a disease of the autonomic nervous system, which establishes itself during the

autoimmune

mechanisms.

Köberle retired from the University of São Paulo in 1976, but soon moved as visiting professor to the Medical School, of the

Orthopedics. He worked there until his death, in 1983, in Americana. Another son, Roland Köberle, is a professor in Physics at the University of São Paulo at São Carlos

.

Miscellaneous

The square in front of the main entrance to the USP campus at Ribeirão Preto is named in his honor.

Bibliography

Koeberle, F. Cardiopathia parasympathicopriva. Munch. Med. Wochenschr.. 1959 Jul 31;101:1308-10.
Koeberle, F. Enteromegaly and cardiomegaly in Chagas disease. Gut. 1963 Dec;41:399-405.

External links

Rezende, J.M.: Fritz Köberle and his studies on Chagas Disease (in Portuguese)

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