[The Rostock chair of pharmacology under Paul Trendelenburg 1919-1923].

On May 15th 1919 the pharmacologist Paul Trendelenburg, son of the surgeon Friedrich Trendelenburg, was appointed head of the Department of Pharmacology and Physiological Chemistry at the University of Rostock. Though these days still saw the aftermath of World War I, faculty and administrational procedures were pursued in a surprisingly rapid and concise manner, so that less than two months were needed for the appointment. Despite the scarcity of funds and serious postwar inflation, Trendelenburg soon embarked on an ambitious experimental and publicational program, his methodology firmly resting on the physiological basis of any pharmacological finding. The Rostock years mark the completion of his work on adrenaline, he had started earlier when refining the preparation of the perfused frog hindquarters (the Trendelenburg preparation) in Walther Straub's laboratory at Freiburg i. Br. Trendelenburg's vigour and scientific productivity during his 4 years at Rostock can be easily inferred from his almost 400 pages of extensive reviews, separating facts from fiction. Rostock marks as well the beginning of his work on hormones. Trendelenburg's endocrinological work stands out for the development of sensitive bioassays for measuring calcium concentrations after thyroidectomy and for evaluating the oxytocic principle of the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland which not only made him alert the pharmaceutical industry to the insufficient quality of pituitary extracts on the market, but also led him to discover the principle of neurosecretion within the tuber cinereum of the hypothalamus.