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The first president of
the Section was the doctor and naturalist
Anastasie Fatu, founder of the Botanical
Gardens in Iasi, the first of its kind in
the country. In that same period of
ground-breaking, Nicolae Kretzulescu was to
become the first physician elected President
of the Academy (in 1872) and one of the
founders of Romanian medical education.
At the same time that the Romanian Academic
Society became the Romanian Academy, the
Section of Natural Sciences changed its name
to the Scientific Section. Grigore Antipa,
founder of the Museum of Natural History in
Bucharest which bears his name, was the
Secretary of this Section for 20 years. A
student of Ernst Haeckel at Jena, Antipa
dedicated himself primarily to the biology
of underwater animals, i.e. hydrobiology.
His studies of the animal life in the Black
Sea, the Danube River and the Danube Delta
are now classics. One of the illustrious
directors of this museum was the zoologist
Constantin Motas, a renowned hydrobiologist
and biospeleologist. Here we should also
mention Emil Racovita, founder of the
world’s first speleological institute in
Cluj, a member of academic societies in
France and Belgium, and one of the
participants in the Belgian Antarctic
expedition of 1897-1899. Near the South
Pole, Racovita discovered numerous unknown
species and made unique observations about
the birds and whales. However, his name is
linked primarily to the founding of
biospeleology, the science of the
fascinating animal life strictly specific to
caves. The Speleological Institute of the
Romanian Academy now bears his name. Of
those who continued Racovita’s work after
World WarII, one of the principal scientists
was the above-mentioned Constantin Motas,
who created the specialty called
phreatobiology, meaning the study of animal
life in ground water strata. Among the
uniquely valuable collections of the Antipa
Museum is the enormous collection of
lepidopterae (approximately 125,000
specimens), donated by the entomologist and
academician Aristide Caradja who discovered
thousands of species of butterflies and
compiled the most comprehensive catalog of
microlepteropterae.
Chronologically, the first Romanian school,
that is, the first autochthonous research
center devoted uniquely to medicine, was
that founded by Victor Babes, namely the
Institute of Pathology and Bacteriology in
Bucharest, which was the point of departure
of the other national medical schools. This
Romanian scholar, along with A.V.Cornil,
published (in France) the world’s first
treatise on bacteriology, and was recognized
as one of the founders of modern
microbiology. He discovered and described
over 50 pathogenic microorganisms, and made
classic contributions to the study of
rabies, diphtheria and other infectious
diseases, as well as serotherapy and
immunology.
Many internationally renowned scholars were
students of Babes, even though they worked
in other specialties. Among them was the
neurologist Gheorghe Marinescu, one of the
founders of modern neurology and author of
the well-known treatise La cellule nerveuse
which appeared in Paris in 1909. An
impressive number of "firsts" are connected
to the research of Gheorghe Marinescu in the
fields of the morphophysiopathology of the
neuron, pathological anatomy of the nervous
system, and others. He was among the first
to use electroencephalography in the study
of certain maladies, and the first to use
motion pictures for scientific purposes.
Another Romanian medical school that
attained international prestige was that
founded by Ion Cantacuzino, whose institute
bears his name today. Cantacuzino made
numerous contributions to pathology and the
prevention and treatment of infectious and
contagious diseases, for example cholera,
typhus exanthematicus (spotted fever),
tuberculosis, streptococcal infections,
leprosy, scarlet fever and others. Like
Babes, Cantacuzino was trained at the
Pasteur Institute in Paris; he was one in a
lengthy series of Romanian scientists have
maintained to this day, through schools
founded in Romania, an active collaboration
with the illustrious Pasteur Institute. His
name is tied to the internationally renowned
"La grande expérience roumaine" (the great
Romanian experiment), through which the
practical value of anti-cholera vaccines was
proved, after they had been used
successfully during the epidemic of 1913, in
the time of the Balkan War. In 1923, the
League of Nations recognized his efforts in
the worldwide fight against epidemics.
Likewise we should mention his important
contribution to the study of invertebrate
immunology.
Constantin Levaditi, initially trained in
Babes’ school, later came to occupy a
prominent position among those schooled at
the Pasteur Institute. In his over 750
published papers, Levaditi made unusually
important and original contributions to the
fields of virology and immunology, as well
as to the treatment of syphilis with
bismuth. One of C. Levaditi’s students and
assistants, also trained at the Pasteur
Institute, was Professor Stefan S. Nicolau.
Their collaboration was exceptionally
fruitful, producing new concepts in
virology, a new Romanian scientific school,
a research institute of the Romanian Academy
called the Institute of Virology Stefan S.
Nicolau, and a Virology Department
established in 1942 at the Medical in
Bucharest School of Medicine, the first of
its kind in the world. Their tradition has
been carried on under the direction of
Professor Nicolae Cajal (b.1919). Amongst
Stefan S. Nicolau’s most important
scientific contributions we will cite only a
few, such as the multi-etyology of viral
hepatitis, the concept of the atrovirus and
the infravirus, the biophytism of viruses,
the implication of certain viruses in
oncogenesis and others.
Another influential and important
personality in the medical sciences was
Constantin I. Parhon, founder of the
national school of endocrinology. Parhon was
probably the first European to make the
connection between endocrine functions and
nerve cells, creating the concept of
neuro-endocrine integration. Along with his
creative activities in endocrinology,
neurology and psychiatry, Parhon undertook
pioneering research in gerontology,
affirming that, "aging is a pathological
state" which could be treated, thus
prolonging life expectancy. Professors
Stefan Milcu and Ana Aslan were trained at
his school. Milcu, the author of numerous
reference works in the field of
endocrinology relating to the pathogenesis
of endocrine diseases, was Secretary General
and then Vice President of the Romanian
Academy.
Francisc Rainer was a pioneer in the domains
of anatomy and anthropology, and was made an
Honorary Member of the Romanian Academy in
1943. Rainer based the study of anatomy on
the concept of functional structures,
seeking to show the determining role of
physiological factors in the modeling of
life forms. He founded the Center for
Anthropological Research in Bucharest, which
bears his name and houses his collection of
over 6000 skulls, a priceless
anthropological document.
Daniel Danielopolu, a pioneer and founder of
his own school in the domain of
physiopathology, was a great theoretician
and experimentalist in modern medicine as
well as a genuine forerunner in the domains
of biocybernetics and pharmacology. He also
made original and valuable discoveries
concerning the neuro-vegetative system.
Rainer’s disciples include major
personalities, in the front rank of whom
stands George Emil Palade, Nobel Prize
laureate for medicine and physiology in
1974, and elected Honorary Member of the
Romanian Academy in 1975. Settled in the
United States, Palade undertook cellular
research with the aid of electron
microscopes, evidencing a series of cellular
structures and components, as well as their
functions. He defined for the first time the
delicate structure of the mitochondria (the
primary energy source of cells), observed
and described ribosomes and their role in
the synthesis of proteins, and studied the
endoplasmic reticulum and chemical synapses.
Among his close collaborators figure
Professors Nicolae Simionescu and Maya
Simionescu, founders of the Institute of
Cellular Biology and Pathology of the
Romanian Academy, which now bears the name
of Professor Nicolae Simionescu. The
principal scope of this Institute’s research
is the cellular biology and pathology of the
cardio-vascular system in health and
disease, especially its modifications in
atherosclerosis and diabetes.
Doctor Nicolae Paulescu merits a special
mention here. Physiology professor at the
School of Medicine in Bucharest, he was
responsible for the discovery of the role of
the pancreas in diabetes as well as of
insulin (which he called "pancreatina,"
pancreatine), and of the treatment of this
disease with pancreas aqueous extract.
In 1948, separate sections were established
for the biological sciences and the medical
sciences. The Section of Biological Sciences
comprises the Institutes of Biochemistry,
Biology, Speleology and Cellular Biology and
Pathology. Research into the interaction of
glicoproteins with proteins in the process
of biosynthesis is the main field of study
of the Institute of Biochemistry. The
Institute of Biology has a broad field of
activities among which are research projects
regarding the functional biology of
microorganisms under extreme environmental
conditions and the study of the ecosystems
in the flood-prone Lower Danube and Danube
Delta region. We should also mention the
ecological research station near Sinaia and
the reservation of the Retezat Scientific
Park. The Institute of Speleology has
distinguished itself through
biospeleological research in hypoxic
environments, especially in the Movile cave
near Mangalia (Dobrogea) where approximately
30 specimens of invertebrates adapted to an
atmosphere rich in hydrogen sulphide (H2S)
were discovered. The Institute of Cellular
Biology and Pathology has obtained uniquely
valuable results in the study of the
cellular alteration of the vascular walls in
atherosclerosis and diabetes associated with
atherosclerosis; these results have been
published in prestigious international
journals and books.
Some of the most important periodicals
published by the Biology Section are Revue
roumaine de biologie (with the series
Biologie Végétale et Biologie Animale),
Revue roumaine de biochimie, Theoretical and
Applied Karstology and Travaux de l’Institut
de Spéologie "Emil Racovitza".
The Medical Sciences Section coordinates the
Institute of Virology and the Centers of
Anthropology and Immunology. The Institute
of Virology has developed important research
programs in the domain of certain viral
diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis,
respiratory viral diseases, etc., with
notable results in health care. The Center
for Immunology is internationally recognized
for its original research into cell
receptors. The Center for Anthropological
Research combines, in a multidisciplinary
synthesis, medical anthropology, cultural
anthropology and paleoanthropology.
This Section’s most important periodical
publications are: Romanian Journal of
Virology, Annuaire d’Anthropologie, Romanian
Neurosurgery, Romanian Journal of
Biophysics, Romanian Journal of Neurology,
Romanian Journal of Endocrinology, Romanian
Journal of Morphology and Embryology,
Romanian Journal of Internal Medicine, and
Romanian Journal of Physiology.
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