Georg von Békésy
It is interesting to note that the two persons connected to Otolaryngology who received a Nobel Prize in Medicine were mainly interested in the ear and were both born in Hungary. I already mentioned Robert Bárány, who won the prize in 1914 and now we will talk about Georg von Békésy, who won the prize in 1961.
Békésy was born in 1899 in Budapest. He studied chemistry in Bern and received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Budapest in 1926. Before and during the Second World War he worked for the Royal Hungarian Institute for Research in Telegraphy, in Budapest, where he studied the signal quality in telecommunications and then became interested in the physiology of hearing.
My professor of neurophysiology, Dr. Hallowell Davis, once told me that another great scientist, Professor Ernest Glenn Wever, the man who discovered the cochlear microphonics, visited Békésy in Budapest and, on his return, succeeded in convincing the professors of Harvard University that he should be invited to continue his studies in the United States. And he actually created his laboratory at Harvard University in 1946. In 1965, however, his laboratory was destroyed by a fire and he moved to Honolulu as Professor at the University of Hawaii, to work in a research laboratory for sense organs.
I was fortunate to know him personally in 1971, when he accepted the invitation to come to that year’s Brazilian Congress of Otolaryngology as an invited guest. We found that he was systematically refusing all invitations to American and European medical meetings; his invariable answer was, “I am an old man and I don’t like to travel.” But he did accept our invitation to come to São Paulo. The reason was that he was very much interested in art and on that year we had our first Biennual Art Exhibit, which he had a chance to explore during the congress week.
Not surprisingly, one of his lectures in our congress was named “Originality in Art and Science.” I remember his comment on Vincent van Gogh’s picture of the church at Auvers, in which we can see both side walls: “A great artist does not have the obey the laws of perspective.”
One of Békésy’s biographers, Floyd Ratliff, tells us that on the occasion of his election to the National Academy of Sciences, in 1956, Békésy gave the following replies to a questionnaire that the Academy sent him:
Major interest?
Art
Major influences for the selection of your particular field of science?
Pure accident.
Békésy developed a method for dissecting the inner ear of several types of animals leaving the cochlea practically intact and made observations that showed how different sound wave frequencies reach different areas of the cochlea, exciting different fibers of the acoustic nerve. He dissected cochleas of animals of many different sizes, from mouse to elephant. He also developed a mechanical model of the cochlea, which confirmed his concept of frequency dispersion by the cochlea’s basilar membrane.
From this work Békésy elaborated his traveling-wave theory: the sound impulse sends a wave sweeping along the basilar membrane. As the wave moves along the membrane, its amplitude increases until it reaches a maximum, then falls off sharply and dies out. The point of maximum amplitude is the point at which the frequency of the sound is detected by the ear.
We now know that the “place theory” does not explain our capacity of discriminating small frequency changes; this task is performed by the action of the external hair cells of the cochlea and this cell activity was not known in his time. But it is unquestionable that his contribution to the neurophysiological studies of the ear was of the utmost importance. It was for his study of the traveling waves that he received the Nobel Prize in 1961.
Another great scientist of Harvard University, Dr. S. S. Stevens, wrote that Békésy was “a scientist's scientist, a physicist, anatomist, physiologist, psychologist and experimenter extraordinary.”
Most of Békésy's papers can be found in a book called “Experiments in Hearing”, organized by E. G. Wever and published in 1958. This important book was later reprinted by the Acoustical Society of America.
Georg von Békésy died in Honolulu in 1972, less than a year after his visit to Brazil.
* "Georg von Békésy - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 21 Jun 2015. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1961/bekesy-bio.html>
 |
| Georg von Békésy * |
My professor of neurophysiology, Dr. Hallowell Davis, once told me that another great scientist, Professor Ernest Glenn Wever, the man who discovered the cochlear microphonics, visited Békésy in Budapest and, on his return, succeeded in convincing the professors of Harvard University that he should be invited to continue his studies in the United States. And he actually created his laboratory at Harvard University in 1946. In 1965, however, his laboratory was destroyed by a fire and he moved to Honolulu as Professor at the University of Hawaii, to work in a research laboratory for sense organs.
I was fortunate to know him personally in 1971, when he accepted the invitation to come to that year’s Brazilian Congress of Otolaryngology as an invited guest. We found that he was systematically refusing all invitations to American and European medical meetings; his invariable answer was, “I am an old man and I don’t like to travel.” But he did accept our invitation to come to São Paulo. The reason was that he was very much interested in art and on that year we had our first Biennual Art Exhibit, which he had a chance to explore during the congress week.
Not surprisingly, one of his lectures in our congress was named “Originality in Art and Science.” I remember his comment on Vincent van Gogh’s picture of the church at Auvers, in which we can see both side walls: “A great artist does not have the obey the laws of perspective.”
 |
| van Gogh's Church at Auvers |
Major interest?
Art
Major influences for the selection of your particular field of science?
Pure accident.
Békésy developed a method for dissecting the inner ear of several types of animals leaving the cochlea practically intact and made observations that showed how different sound wave frequencies reach different areas of the cochlea, exciting different fibers of the acoustic nerve. He dissected cochleas of animals of many different sizes, from mouse to elephant. He also developed a mechanical model of the cochlea, which confirmed his concept of frequency dispersion by the cochlea’s basilar membrane.
We now know that the “place theory” does not explain our capacity of discriminating small frequency changes; this task is performed by the action of the external hair cells of the cochlea and this cell activity was not known in his time. But it is unquestionable that his contribution to the neurophysiological studies of the ear was of the utmost importance. It was for his study of the traveling waves that he received the Nobel Prize in 1961.
Another great scientist of Harvard University, Dr. S. S. Stevens, wrote that Békésy was “a scientist's scientist, a physicist, anatomist, physiologist, psychologist and experimenter extraordinary.”
Most of Békésy's papers can be found in a book called “Experiments in Hearing”, organized by E. G. Wever and published in 1958. This important book was later reprinted by the Acoustical Society of America.
Georg von Békésy died in Honolulu in 1972, less than a year after his visit to Brazil.
* "Georg von Békésy - Biographical". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 21 Jun 2015. <http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1961/bekesy-bio.html>
Comments
Post a Comment