Talk:Embryology History - Albert Kuntz

Published by UNI ScholarWorks, 1957 Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Vol. 64 [1957], No. 1, Art. 6

ALBERT KUNTZ 1879-1957

Professor Albert Kuntz, director of the department of anatomy at St. Louis University, died suddenly from coronary heart disease on January 19, 1957.

He was born at Batesville, Indiana, on March 19, 1879, but as a boy he moved with his family to the Ridgeway-Cresco district of northeastern Jowa. He began his collegiate education at Charles City College where he received the A.B. degree in 1904. Since the close of that school, the alumni lists were transferred to Morningside College of Sioux City and consequently he is commonly listed as a graduate of the latter college. Returning to his alma mater he served as a professor of natural science at Charles City College from 1905 to 1908 and then he entered the department of animal biology at the State University of Iowa where he successively served as scholar (1908-1909), fellow (19091910), senior fellow (1910-1911) and instructor (1911-1913). He received his Ph.D. in 1910 and it was during this period of graduate and postgraduate studies that he published his series of papers on the development of the autonomic nervous system in various classes of vertebrates. In 1913 he went to St. Louis University as assistant professor of biology and histology, but during the next five years in addition to his teaching and his research he fulfilled the requirements as a student in the school of medicine and received his M.D. degree in 1918. He was appointed professor of microanatomy in 1919; and served as director of that department from 1930-1946. Since 1946 he has been director of the department of anatomy.

Professor Kuntz, through all of his years as a student and as a teacher, never lost sight of the significance of concentrated research and became an authority on the morphology of the autonomic nervous system and its relation to physiology and clinical medicine. Two textbooks, numerous papers, reviews and monographs are the records of all of these years of scientific research in this one field for which he was so well known.

It seems appropriate, however, to emphasize in this record of his life, the biological training and interest acquired in Iowa. He was an Iowan partly in his raising and wholly in his education for the baccalaureate and doctoral degrees, He found his major research interest at the State University of Iowa.

Albert Kuntz

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https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol64/iss1/6 et al.: In Memoriam: William M. Goldsmith; Ulrich A. Hauber; Albert Kuntz

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and while there many of the faculty in the biological sciences influenced him in establishing his career. Mention should be made of those in the animal biology division of the zoological department, not only Professor Gilbert L. Houser, who initiated and directed Professor Kuntz’s first research, but especially Professor Frank A. Stromsten, whose friendship Professor Kuntz revered throughout his life.

Although the autonomic system was his major interest, it should be noted that Professor Kuntz probably never lost sight of other fundamental biological problems and on occasion he returned to these interesting if brief interludes from autonomic research. :

He was mindful of anatomic variations, and the problems of metamorphosis in amphibia intrigued him for a time. His studies of fish, especially developmental, represent careful observations made while he was a visiting scientist at the United States Fisheries Laboratory at Beaufort, North Carolina, and the United States Fisheries Biological Station at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Professor Kuntz made some of these studies while he was guest investigator at the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory, during the period that the laboratory was under the directorships of Professor Robert B. Wylie.and Professor Stromsten. A list of his publications that were printed in the Proceedings of this Academy and in the University of Iowa Natural History Studies and especially other papers which are of a non-autonomic nature are listed below.

Professor Kuntz was a kindly man, unassuming and quiet. He was also a deeply religious man. He held the esteem of all who were his students, undergraduate or graduate, and of all who came to seek his counsel.

In addition to his fundamental research on the autonomic nervous system, he will be remembered for his efforts to train others as teachers and researchers in the general field of anatomy. Departments of anatomy in various parts of the country include many of his former students.

He was a member of many scientific societies. In the Iowa Academy of Science he became an associate in 1909, a fellow in 1911, and a life fellow in 1914,

He is survived by his wife, Mrs. Albert Kuntz (Emma Magdsick whom he met at Charles City College where she was a teacher in the department of music), and a daughter, Mrs. R. Hollis Hamstra of San Rafael, California, and five grandchildren.

Funeral services were held in Charles City, Iowa, on January 21 and burial was in the Charles City Cemetery.

1910 (1909), The migration of nervous elements into the dorsal and ventral nerve roots of embryos of the pig. Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science for 1909, 16: 217-220 and plate.

1913, The embryology and larval development of Bairdiella chrysura and Anchovia mitchilli. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 33, 3-19.

1913, Notes on the habits, morphology of the reproductive organs, and embryology jot the viviparous fish Gambusia affinis. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 33, 181- .

1914, Notes on the embryology and larval development of five species of teleostean fishes. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 34, 409-429.

1915 (with Lewis Radcliffe), Notes on the embryology and larval development of twelve teleostean fishes. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 35, 89-134.

1916, The histological basis of adaptive shades and colors in the flounder, Peralichthys albiguttus. Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 35, 5-28.

1916, A note on superfetation. Interstate Med. Journal, 23, 1-11.

1920, Retention of dead foetuses in utero and its bearing on the problems of superfetation and superfecundation. Anat. Record, 17, 295-307.

1921, Degenerative changes in the seminal epithelium and associated hyper ‘ Published by UNI ScholarWorks, 1957 Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Vol. 64 [1957], No. 1, Art. 6

1957] IN MEMORIAM 67

plasia of the interstitial tissue in the mammalian testis. Endocrinology, 5, 190-204, 1922, A case of abdominal pregnancy with retention of dead fetuses in the rabbit. Anat. Record, 23, 237-239. 1922, The learning of a simple maze by the larvae of Ambystoma tigrinum. University of Iowa Studies in Natural History, 10, 27-35. 1922, Metamorphic changes in the digestive system of Rana pipiens and Ambystoma tigrinum. University of Iowa Studies in Natural History, 10, 37-50. 1922 (with J. Zozaya), The feeding reactions of Ambystoma tigrinum (Green). University of Iowa Studies in Natural History, 10, 51-60. 1922 (with J. Zozaya), Responses of the de-eyed larvae of Ambystoma tigrinum to solid bodies. University of Iowa Studies in Natural History, 10, 61-65. 1922, Factors involved in the quantitative reduction of the tissues in the stomach and intestine in amphibian larvae during metamorphosis. Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. & Med. 20, 78-79. 1923, An instance of polymely in the frog. Proc. Iowa. Acad. Science, 30, 157-161. 1924, Anatomical and physiological changes in the digestive system during metamorphosis in Rana pipiens and Ambystoma tigrinum. Journal Morph, 38, 581-598.

KERMIT CHRISTENSEN