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1900 Died Wilhelm Friedrich Kühne, German physiologist (Hamburg, March 28, 1837 - Heidelberg, June 10, 1900). Today it is best known for creating the word enzyme. After attending high school in Lüneburg, he went to study in Göttingen, where he was taught chemistry by Friedrich Wöhler and physiology by Rudolph Wagner. He graduated in 1856. He studied with various famous physiologists, including Emile du Bois-Reymond in Berlin, Claude Bernard in Paris, and Ludwig and von Brücke in Vienna. At the end of 1863, under the direction of Rudolf Virchow, he was in charge of the chemical department of the pathological laboratory in Berlin. In 1868 he was appointed professor of physiology in Amsterdam, and in 1871 he was elected successor to professor Herman von Helmholtz in Heidelberg. Kühne’s original works fall into two main groups: the physiology of muscles and nerves, which occupied the earlier years of his life, and the chemistry of digestion, which he began to explore while he worked in Berlin with Virchow. In 1876, he discovered the protein digestible enzyme trypsin. He was also known for his research into vision and the chemical changes that occur in the retina under the influence of light. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1898.

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