Max Rubner

Max Rubner (1854 to 1932) was a German physiologist and hygienist, born in Munich and died in Berlin. He studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, worked under Adolf von Baeyer and Carl von Voit, and took his doctorate in 1878. He held the chair of hygiene at Marburg from 1885, succeeded Robert Koch in the hygiene chair at Berlin in 1891, and in 1909 moved to the Berlin chair of physiology. He co-founded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Labour Physiology and directed it from 1913, studying fatigue from a biophysical rather than a Taylorist standpoint, and in 1899 joined the founding board of the German Society for Public Hygiene. He is remembered for research on metabolism, energy physiology and dietary thermogenesis, above all his isodynamic law, that the form of calorie intake does not change energy balance, and for calorimetric values for carbohydrates, proteins and fats. He also studied infant energy metabolism with Otto Heubner.