PREGL, Fritz

P. went to elementary school and classical gymnasium in Ljubljana, and after his father's death, he and his mother moved to Graz, where he studied medicine and took a doctor's degree in 1894. During his studies he worked at various institutes; first at the Institute of Zoology where he learnt microscopy and macroscopy techniques in zootomy (anatomy and dissection of animals). In 1890/91 he was the assistant of Rudolf Klemensiewicz at the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology where he acquired knowledge and skills in bacteriological and vivisection techniques. In 1891 he worked with the renowned Alexander Rollett at the Institute of Physiology & Histology and remained there until 1904 when he set off on a long study trip starting at the Gustav von Hofners Institute (Tubinger), followed by Straßburg with Franz Hofmeister and Otto Fürth, Paris, Leipzig with Wilhelm Ostwald and Berlin with Emil Fischer.
In 1910, P. succeeded Wilhelm Franz Loebisch at the Faculty of Medicine in Innsbruck, and he was invited to Berlin to become the successor of Emil Aderhaldens. In 1913 he had to decide between Innsbruck and Graz and voted for the latter, where he lived until his death in 1930.
In Graz P. established an international centre for the micro-analytical research of organic substances, and in 1920/21 he was also Chancellor of Graz University.
P. developed a method for the micro-analysis of organic substances - a good decade before publishing his findings, in 1917. In 1923, this work was reprinted for a second time and translated into French, and the following year into English. Other reprints and translations followed over the ensuing years.
He rarely contributed articles on his research and achievements, therefore, whenever he did do so, this generated considerable interest within the profession. His mode of operation was to present the findings of his research only when he was absolutely sure about them. This is also the reason why the number of publications to his name is not as extensive as one might expect. This professional interest illustrated the fact that P. often got close to solutions for the problems he investigated.
In the 1910s he dedicated his research to the chemical structure of bile acids, following the method used since the period of Leibig, which required huge quantities of material to work with. In 1910 he was faced with a dilemma, of whether to continue ”the research in the same direction or to improve the quantitative analyses of organic substances so that smaller quantities of material can yield accurate results… Nobody has ever ventured in such a direction and I'm tempted to enter into this as yet, undiscovered territory. In addition, Friedrich Emich in Graz fundamentally proved the applicability of work with small quantities of substances in the field of inorganic chemistry.«
P. had to face many significant problems with his research of organic chemistry, although he solved these because of his broad education in the natural sciences, his extraordinary systematic approach, consistent identification of practical answers and relentless pursuit of set objectives. First he had to make the necessary equipment, and he went to a joiner, locksmith and glassworker to get advice, and whilst in Innsbruck, he also learnt how to grind glass. All this helped him realise his ideas by himself, and he developed sets of apparatus, from an automatic analyses machine propelled by an alarm clock, to the »Micro-Dumas.« Of considerable relevance was a sensitive microbalance, developed in collaboration with the Hamburg-based company Kuhlmann, which could weigh within an accuracy of 0.001 milligram. In addition to these practical challenges, he had to face theoretical issues which P. resolutely solved thanks to his knowledge across various scientific fields, in particular physiology.
The outcome of his endeavours was a new method of analysing of the smallest quantities of substances which opened completely new horizons in the research of organic chemistry and biochemistry, as well as medicine.
In 1923, P. was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry and allocated a portion of the money for the Graz Institute in order to stimulate the state to contribute funds for the acquisition of more advanced equipment. He was awarded a Lieben Prize for Chemistry from the Imperial Academy of Science, Vienna.
He liked to return to Slovenia and kept contact with his colleagues, including Maks → Samec and Marius Rebek – as well as participating in the establishment of modern chemistry at the University of Ljubljana. At the Institute of Chemistry they still keep parts of a device that P. donated to his colleagues in 1925.
Rather late in his life, he was awarded various acknowledgments and awards, including an honorary doctorate from the University of Göttingen and University of Technology in München. In 1928, the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna wanted him back, but he stayed in Graz where he was renowned and popular in particular due to the fact that after the end of WWI, on his initiative, the university opened a canteen for students, war returnees and the poor.