Prof. Dr. med.
Rudolf Richard Ehrmann
1879 - 1963

“Rudolf Ehrmann, the author of the paper, was born in Altenstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse, on 4 February 1879. He attended the “Philantropia” secondary school in Frankfurt am Main from Easter 1889 to Easter 1895 and the municipal (later Goethe) Gymnasium from Easter 1896 until his graduation on Michaelmas 1898. He studied medicine and natural sciences in Heidelberg, Munich, and Berlin from October 1896, where he passed the preliminary medical examination in July 1900. He went on to study in Munich, Kiel, and Strasbourg, where he passed the state examination on 29 June 1903″, Rudolf Ehrmann states in his dissertation. His parents were the merchant Salomon Ehrmann and his wife Marianne, née Plaut. The family professed the jewish faith.

Education and Places of Work

Rudolf Ehrmann received his doctorate from the University of Strasbourg in 1903 with the thesis “Über die Peroxyprotsäuren”. After completing his studies, he worked temporarily at the Institute for Pharmacology at the University of Heidelberg under Rudolf Gottlieb. Here he worked on the physiology and experimental pathology of adrenaline secretion including the determination methodology for adrenaline in the blood in 1905/06. He undertook his training in internal medicine at the university hospital in Greifswald and primarily at the III Medical Clinic of the Charité under Alfred Goldscheider. Ehrmann habilitated at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Berlin in 1912 and was appointed private lecturer. He was appointed professor (extraordinarius) of internal medicine in 1915.

Rudolf Ehrmann was appointed Medical Director of the I. Internal Department at the Municipal Hospital Berlin-Neukölln in 1917. In April 1919, he married Käthe Pollack, a native of Berlin, and their son Rolf Helmut was born in 1921.

Both scientifically and clinically, he dealt with the entire spectrum of gastric, intestinal, liver and pancreatic diseases as well as metabolic issues such as diabetes mellitus. He was especially devoted to the examination of gastric function and introduced Ehrmann’s alcohol test drink for the analysis of gastric secretion. His co-workers at the Neukölln clinic, Leon Dinkin, Heinz Taterka, and Walter Wolff, also published on this subject in the 1920s. Ehrmann was a broadly trained internist with a focus on gastroenterology.

In addition to his clinical work, he ran a respected private practice in Berlin, and counted Albert Einstein among his patients.

1933

Ehrmann had to terminate his work at the Neukölln hospital as early as April 1933. He was dismissed from the municipal health service in Berlin. His teaching licence at the Berlin University was revoked in 1935 (“Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service”, § 4, political unreliability, of 7 April 1933).

Escape to England and the USA

Ehrmann, his wife and their 17-year-old son fled to London in 1939. On September 1, 1939, with Albert Einstein’s support, the family sailed from Southampton to the USA on the S.S. Arandora Star. They reached New York on September 12, 1939.

He was a lecturer at Bellevue Medical Center New York and a consultant in gastroenterology from 1939 to 1940. He was able to work as a research assistant at Beth Israel Hospital, City of New York (now Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital) from 1940 to 1942. After having passed language examinations and the American medical exam, Ehrmann received a licence to practise medicine in private practice in New York City in 1942. There he once again was the family doctor of Albert Einstein and Fritz Kreisler, among others.

In the USA, he was a member of the American Medical Association and the American College of Gastroenterology and the Rudolf Virchow Medical Society in the city of New York. After finishing his work in New York, Rudolf Ehrmann moved to Alameda in California..

Rudolf Ehrmann died at the age of 84 on December 21, 1963 in what was then Herrick Memorial Hospital in Berkeley, California. His wife Käthe Ehrmann died in 1967 and their son, the chemist Rolf Helmut Ehrmann, died in 2011. Rudolf Ehrmann’s younger brother, the businessman Sally Ehrmann, was also able to flee from Germany to the USA.

The New York Times (23.12.1963) paid tribute to Rudolf Ehrmann, “the former professor of gastroenterology at Bellevue Medical Center in New York who treated Albert Einstein”, in an impressive obituary.