Background
Maximilian von Frey was born on November 16, 1852, in Salzburg, Austria. Frey’s father, Carl, was a well-to-do merchant in Salzburg. His mother, Anna Gugg, was the daughter of a high-ranking Austrian official.
Augustusplatz 10, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
Maximilian received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1877.
educator physiologist scientist
Maximilian von Frey was born on November 16, 1852, in Salzburg, Austria. Frey’s father, Carl, was a well-to-do merchant in Salzburg. His mother, Anna Gugg, was the daughter of a high-ranking Austrian official.
Frey began his studies in medicine at Vienna, where Ernst Brucke was then teaching physiology. From there he went to Leipzig and Freiburg. As early as 1876, in Carl Ludwig’s physiology laboratory at Leipzig, he began examining the functioning of the vasodilating and vasoconstrictive nerves in the salivary glands. In 1877 he graduated from Leipzig.
Frey returned in 1880 to Ludwig’s laboratory and remained there until 1897. He became a lecturer in physiology at Leipzig in 1882 and in 1891 was made associate professor. In 1897 he accepted a professorship of physiology at Zurich and in 1899 at Würzburg, where he remained until his death.
During the first period of his career Frey was concerned primarily with muscle physiology; during the second period with the mechanics of circulation; and during the third period he became a pioneer in the investigation of the “lower senses” - the sensory organs of the skin and “deep sensibility.”
In muscle physiology he worked on, among other things, a comparison of the extent of a single contraction and of tetanus, including when under a load. Together with Max Gruber, Frey discovered the increased oxygen consumption of muscle in the recovery phase. He investigated the role of lactic acid in muscle metabolism, the influence of inorganic ions on muscle contraction and membrane permeability, and heat production in muscle. He built an interesting apparatus for perfusing a surviving, isolated muscle.
In circulatory physiology Frey developed distortion-free recording and measuring units which helped him to answer questions concerning the course of pulse curves, reflection phenomena, and the inertia of recording levers.
From 1894 Frey was particularly preoccupied with the physiology of the skin senses and found, identified, and localized the pressure points and sensory organs for heat and cold, using appropriate methods and working on a quantitative basis (irritating hair, prickling bristle). He examined the thresholds, the summation, the adequate and inadequate stimulation of the sensory receptors, the nature of itching, the sensation of vibration, and tickling.
Frey proved the existence of sensory muscle receptors for the development of strength and the changing of the muscle length, thus laying the foundations for the understanding of the so-called deep sensibility.
Saxonian Academy of Sciences. German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Frey was charming but reserved and modest and of a critical temperament. He was musical and loved the Alps. He possessed tremendous scientific imagination and great ingenuity in the techniques and variation of physiological experiments.