LOEB, leb, Jacques, German-American physiologist and biologist: b. Germany, 7 April 1859. He studied at Berlin, Munich and Strassburg, was assistant at both Wiirzburg (1886-88) and Strassburg (1888-90), studied at the Naples zoological station, and in 1891-92 was associate professor of biology at Bryn Mawr College. In 1892 he became assistant professor of physiology and experimental biol ogy at the University of Chicago, and in 1895 associate professor. He was also professor of physiology at the Rush Medical College of Chi cago from 1900. In 1902 he was appointed pro fessor of physiology in the University of Cali fornia. Since 1910 he has been a member of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York. His experiments have been in different fields of physiology and biology, all trying to show that complicated life phenomena can be reduced to simple physico-chemical laws. In his earlier work he showed that com plicated animal instincts are identical with those reactions of plants which are known as tropisms, and he and his collaborators have re cently shown that the law of Bunsen and Ros coe which controls the chemical effects of light also expresses the influence of light upon those animal instincts which fall under the name of heliotropism. His experiments on artificial
parthenogenesis have furnished the proof that the fertilizing effect of the living spermatozoon can be replaced by simple solutions. Other ex periments deal with the influence of salts upon life phenomena, with regeneration and hetero morphosis, with effects of temperature, etc. He has published numerous papers in scientific journals and the following books: