TRAUBE, LUDWIG

TRAUBE, LUDWIG (1818–1876), German pathologist; a pioneer in the field of experimental pathology. Traube was born in Silesia and graduated from the University of Berlin. In 1849 he was appointed lecturer and research worker at the Charité Hospital in Berlin and his clinic soon achieved a high reputation for exactness and thoroughness in diagnoses and therapy. His book Gesammelte Beitraege zur Pathologie und Physiologie (3 vols., 1871–78) earned him a worldwide reputation. He was one of the first Jewish physicians to attain the title of professor in Germany. Traube investigated pulmonary resection of the vagus nerve and carried out studies on suffocation, effects of digitalis and other drugs, the pathology of fever, the relationship between heart and kidney diseases, and many other subjects. He was the first to introduce the thermometer in his clinic for regular checking of temperature of all patients. He described an area of the chest wall over which stomach resonance is obtained ("Traube's Space"). "Traube's Sign" is a double sound over the peripheral arteries in aortic insufficiency or mitral stenosis. He also described blood curves ("Traube's Curves") and an artificial chemical membrane ("Traube's Membrane"). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Morrison, Ludwig Traube (Eng., 1927); S.R. Kagan, Jewish Medicine (1952), 222–3. (Suessmann Muntner) TRAUBE, LUDWIG TRAUBE, LUDWIG (1861–1907), master paleographer and critic of Latin texts. Born in Berlin, the son of ludwig traube , the great pathologist, he became professor of the Latin philology of the Middle Ages at the University of Munich in 1904 after a long struggle in which his Jewishness played a key role. His importance lies in the fact that through his independent research he raised paleography to the status of a historical science and made a basic contribution to the intellectual history of the Latin Middle Ages. Possessed of independent means, he was able to visit all the important libraries of Europe and study the Latin manuscripts at length. His studies of contractions of Latin words and nomina sacra (his major work, a study of various ways of writing divine names in manuscripts) proved crucial in tracing the history of schools of copyists, tracing manuscripts to particular monks, and indicating which medieval scholars had used them. He unraveled the complicated textual histories of the Rule of St. Benedict and of the Latin historian Livy. Of his projected comprehensive work on Latin paleography, the study of the half-uncial script appeared post-humously. Despite his premature death, Traube, because of his ability to attract and influence students, continued to exercise a profound influence on the field through his students – P. Lehmann, P. Maas, C.U. Clark, C.H. Beeson, E.A. Lowe , and E.K. Rand – not only in Germany but also in England and especially in the United States. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Boll and P. Lehmann (ed.), Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen von Ludwig Traube, 1 (1909), 11–73 (biography and list of his writings, including a large number in manuscript, some of which were edited posthumously by Boll and Lehmann); J.E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, 3 (1958), 195. (Louis Harry Feldman)