Prof. Dr. Max Cloëtta

Max Arnold Cloëtta was born in Zurich on July 21, 1868. Besides his two older sisters, he was the only son of Prof. Dr. Arnold Leonard Cloëtta and his wife Marie. After completing primary and cantonal school, he decided to study medicine.
In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of his father, whom he greatly admired and who held the chair of forensic medicine and general pathology at the University of Zurich. His maternal grandfather had also been a full professor of surgery in Zurich.

The death of his father shortly before his state examination left Max Cloëtta with a large gap. The following two years were also clouded by his mother’s illness. After the state examination (1892), Max Cloëtta went abroad for further education and laid the foundation for his excellent professional training as a popular assistant to Oswald Schmiedeberg in Strasbourg, among other places.

At the end of 1897, Max Cloëtta habilitated in pharmacology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Zurich, thus beginning his academic career. In 1901, he was elected associate professor of pharmacology, succeeding Prof. Friedrich Goll; in addition, he temporarily held a lectureship in forensic toxicology. On the occasion of his appointment as full professor (1907), he was also assigned the teaching duties for experimental pathology and therapy – thanks to excellent achievements in this field. The University of Zurich owes Max Cloëtta, among other things, the introduction of pharmacology teaching based on experiments, which was designed to promote and deepen the clinical-therapeutic understanding of trainee physicians.

In 1910, Max Cloëtta was elected Dean of the Faculty of Medicine. He soon stimulated several important appointments that were to bring world fame to the faculty. For example, the election of Ferdinand Sauerbruch as successor to Prof. Rudolf Ulrich Krönlein was largely due to his initiative.

In 1914, he was given the office of Rector of the University of Zurich. During the difficult war years, he prudently managed the affairs of the rectorate in addition to his activities as a researcher and academic teacher.

Despite honorable appointments to Göttingen (1908), to Prague (1911) and a call to Munich (1917), he remained loyal to the university of his hometown.

In 1935 he had to give up academic teaching for health reasons. It was not easy for him to part with his lecturing activities and with his students. Until shortly before his last serious illness, Max Cloëtta devoted himself to his pharmacological studies.

For all his devotion to the science he loved, pharmacology, which he served with innermost drive and in the joy of the creative development of a knowledge, in Max Cloëtta, despite a certain reserve, all endeavor ultimately always remained connected with man. Therefore, Max Cloëtta deserves to be honored here not only as a scientist, but above all as a human being. Again and again he distinguished himself by his differentiated knowledge of human nature and his modesty. He summed up his life in the following words:

“If, as an old man, I try to give an account of how I was able to cope with everything, given my various physical ailments and average mental abilities, it is probably this: I have always endeavored not to be taken by surprise by sudden demands, but, foreseeing them where possible, to master them. This is never the way a genius or a bohemian will act, but for the average person this is the way to come close to mastering the demands of life.”

The Journal of Molecular Medicine published an obituary of Max Cloëtta in November 1940 (Vol. 19, Number 46). The author is Wolfgang Heubner, Berlin. You can find the text here (in German).