Fritz Rohrer (1888–1926), a pioneer in pulmonary mechanics whose work was inexplicably ignored for about 30 years

Abstract

Fritz Rohrer (1888–1926) has a special place in the history of respiratory physiology for two reasons. The first is that he laid the foundations of modern pulmonary mechanics in the early 1900s. For example, his seminal paper on pulmonary dynamics, that is, the pressure-flow relationships in the airways, was published in 1915 in one of the top journals in the field. It included extensive measurements of airway dimensions in postmortem human lungs and a sophisticated analysis of the modes of airflow. This was closely followed by a very original analysis of lung statics, which included studies of airway pressures at normal, maximal, and minimal lung volumes in relaxed normal volunteers, and was published in 1916. Remarkably, both papers were essentially ignored at the time. Fortunately, in 1925 he was able to summarize his major findings in a chapter in an important handbook of physiology. However, he tragically died from pulmonary tuberculosis in the following year at the early age of 37. The second reason for his importance in the history of pulmonary mechanics is that inexplicably his very innovative research was essentially ignored for about 30 years. It was not until the 1940s that his work was rediscovered, although not in time to save investigators from duplicating his very original studies. Possible reasons why his work was ignored for so long are discussed. Even today it is not easy to recover some important features of his career, and some aspects of his very original research are still almost unknown.