Albrecht Bethe


Albrecht Julius Theodor Bethe was a German physiologist. He was the father of physicist Hans Bethe.
He studied at the universities of Freiburg, Munich, Berlin and Strasbourg ; receiving his PhD in 1895 at Munich. From 1896 to 1911 he worked at the institute of physiology in Strasbourg, where in 1898 he obtained his doctorate in medicine. In 1911 he became a professor of physiology at the University of Kiel, and four years later, relocated as a professor to the University of Frankfurt. In 1937 he was relieved of his professorial duties at Frankfurt, only to have them reinstated following the end of wartime hostilities in Europe.
He is well known for his studies involving the nervous system of invertebrates. He believed in the "plasticity" of the nervous system, asserting that if one part of the brain is damaged, another part could learn the functions of the damaged portion.
He was a co-editor of "Pflüger's Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie" and of the "Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie".

Selected works