Rusznyák, István

Born Jan. 22, 1889, in Budapest; died there Oct. 15, 1974. Hungarian doctor of internal medicine, pathophysiologist, and biochemist. Academician (1946) and president (1949–70) of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Rusznyák graduated from the medical faculty of the University of Budapest in 1912. He worked in S. Korányi’s clinic. Rusznyák was a professor at the universities of Szeged (1931–46) and Budapest (1946–63). In 1960 he became director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine.

In 1920, Rusznyák discovered that some blood sugar is bonded to proteins (glycoproteins), proposed a micromethod for determining quantities of chlorides, sodium, and urea in the blood, and developed a nephelometric method for determining plasma protein fractions. In 1936, together with A. Szent-Györgyi, he discovered vitamin P (citrin). Rusznyák’s principal works dealt with lymph circulation, shock prophylaxis, and trophic disturbances in instances of diseases of the nervous system.

Rusznyák was a foreign member of the academies of sciences of the USSR (1958), Czechoslovakia (1960), and Poland (1962), an honorary member of the Rumanian Academy of Sciences (1965), and a corresponding member of the academies of sciences of Bulgaria (1948) and the German Democratic Republic (1962), the Swiss Medical Academy (1966), and the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (1966). Rusznyák was awarded the M. V. Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1968 and the Kossuth Prize in 1949 and 1956.