Loewi, << LOH ee, >> Otto (1873-1961), a German-born American doctor and pharmacologist, shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with British scientist Sir Henry Dale for their discoveries on the chemical transmission of nerve impulses.
In the early 1920’s, Loewi demonstrated that the transmission of nerve impulses involved chemicals. Loewi stimulated the heart of a frog to slow its rate of contraction. The fluid passing through the animal’s heart was then passed through the heart of another frog, this time without stimulation of the nerves or heart. This second heart slowed its rate of contraction like the first, suggesting that a substance in the fluid was causing the change. This substance was acetylcholine, a chemical that Sir Henry Dale had proved occurs naturally in animals.
Loewi’s other work includes research into the drugs digitalis, which stimulates the heart, and epinephrine, which enables the body to meet the demands of physical stress. He also studied diabetes and pancreatic disease. During the 1890’s, Loewi practiced medicine in Frankfurt, Germany, but he devoted himself instead to medical research and teaching after witnessing many deaths from such diseases as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Loewi conducted significant research on the kidneys and on diuretics, substances that increase urine flow. He began publishing this research in 1902.
Loewi was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He studied medicine at the University of Strasbourg and in Munich. From 1905, he taught at Austrian universities, first at Vienna, and beginning in 1909 at Graz. When Nazi Germany invaded and took over Austria in 1938, Loewi was forced to leave. He taught briefly in Brussels, Belgium, and at Oxford, in the United Kingdom. In 1940, he went to the United States and started teaching at New York University. He became a United States citizen in 1946.
