By the time the IP was founded in 1954, Gutmann's department had already been working for several years. Arnošt Gutmann, who was appointed in 1949 as the head of the department of the then newly established institute, had all the prerequisites for basic research. He studied medicine at the German faculty of the Charles University, after graduation he specialized in neurology and before the beginning of World War II he managed to emigrate to England. During the War he worked at the Anatomical Institute in Oxford on research into peripheral nerve regeneration under Professor J. Z. Young. Young's team gained important anatomical and physiological knowledge about the regenerative capabilities of nerve fibres; their findings instructed war surgeons on how to treat nerve injuries, and became a formative basis for further research. Gutmann summarized his contribution to this research in a thesis for which he was awarded a PhD at Oxford; later he published a German monograph on nerve regeneration (1958), which represented a broader conception of the subject, and which at the same time served as his DrSc degree defence at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Although Young wanted Gutmann to continue working at Oxford after the end of the War, Arnošt decided to return to Prague. In May 1945, he flew to Terezín to help as a doctor during the typhus epidemic, and after the end of the epidemic he joined Haškovec's research group at the Charles University.

After his appointment as the head, he founded the core of the future 2nd department of the IP, this core was joined by Radan Beránek, Gerta Vrbová, A. Fantiš and L. Polák, and shortly before and after the move to the building of the Biological Institutes of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in Dejvice also by Olga Hudlická, Zdeněk Vodička, Pavel Hník and later by Arnošt Bass and Jiřina Zelená.

After the War, basic research was difficult to get off the ground. Universities had been closed for five years, so it was impossible to build on any previous research in the majority of scientific fields. The embryonic departments were looking for suitable subject matter. This search was evaluated by the Nobel laureate E. Huxley in a discussion two decades later; Huxley described it as overall beneficial for science; thanks to the relative isolation at the time, Czech scientists could not join the mainstream of research, and this led them to the search for and finding of new "sources".

Arnošt Gutmann chose neural tropics as the topic of his research and the neuromuscular system as an appropriate experimental model. The questions of how the nervous system affects the muscle were addressed in experiments on the muscle during workload and at rest, after denervation, reinnervation, deafferentation, tenotomy, etc. A contribution to the actual problem of nerve trophies was made by the publication on the short and long nerve stump (Gutmann et al. 1955), which showed that denervation changes in the muscle occur later the longer the nerve stump below the lesion. It has been further shown that sensory innervation has an inductive effect on the development of muscle mechanoreceptors (Zelená 1957, 1959). These do not develop after denervation at the stage of primary myotubes because they lack the substance released from nerve endings that triggers the differentiation of spindles and tendon bodies by changing the myotubular phenotype (Zelená 1994).

Arnošt strived to solve the problems in a multidisciplinary and teamwork manner, and the Second Department had a chemical (Bass) and morphological laboratory (originally led by Fantiš, later by Zelená) in Dejvice. The electrophysiological laboratory (led by Beránek) and the blood circulation laboratory (led by Hudlická) were gradually equipped with equipment from the institute's workshops and purchases from limited financial resources. Successively other specialized laboratories were established (Drahota. Žák and others).

Most who were beginning to work in the department started as postgraduates, and Arnošt Gutmann, as their supervisor, influenced the selection of the research topic and methods; at the same time, he left enough room for the development of postgraduates' individuality. Arnošt impacted the people surrounding him with his whole personality. He had a sense of humour and also consistently championed democratic approach to decision-making on departmental matters; he also had the gift of intuition, thus encountering a new personality or idea always inspired him to embark on new experiments. His charisma positively influenced the working atmosphere of the group. Thanks to Arnošt, the debates in the group and especially in the Saturday seminars sparkled with ideas, speculations and sharp arguments when presenting and discussing papers or results of ongoing experiments or when planning further experiments.

The works on the muscle were increasing in number and the candidate theses at the end of the postgraduate studies (Vrbová, Beránek, Hudlická, Hník) brought a summary of the findings. Arnošt proposed to present the results of the department at an international forum. Following an agreement with the renowned chemist A. Kleinzeller, they organized a symposium in 1956 with guests from the West (England, USA, etc.) and the East. The historical setting of Strahov Monastery, with the Strahov Library and a view of Prague, was chosen for the event. The symposium was a success. For the Czech participants it was mostly their first encounter with Western science. The guests appreciated the young team's passion for science and its professional leadership. Of particular importance were the informal conversations and meetings; these resulted in invitations to go west where the team had not gone before. After the symposium, the first trips to England for lectures and meetings of the Physiological Society (Beránek, Hudlická, Vrbová) took place, and a long-term collaboration on retrograde axonal transport was established with Prof. Lubinska from the Polish Academy of Sciences. There were also more visitors to the department. After a symposium in Poland in 1958, the first emigration took place: Gerta Vrbová and her children flew to England via Denmark to meet Dr. Hilton, whom she had met at the Prague symposium.

The 1950s began with political trials to which the Academy's institutes responded with the required proclamations demanding severe punishment of the " traitors ". At the constitutional meeting, Gutmann's department was attacked on the grounds that Jews were present; this unexpected racist accusation did not disappear without consequence - L. Polák had to leave the institute. With a few exceptions, the IP scientists were all members of the Communist Party because they wanted to change the world after the War; everyone in Gutmann's department was in the Party, and those who were not, such as Pavel Hník, were soon convinced by the others. However, resolutions were often sent from the Institute to the Communist Party headquarters with criticisms and reservations about the Party's actions. Therefore, after 1968 the entire Party organization of the IP was dissolved and in a later review most members were crossed out or expelled.

At the end of the fifties, at Arnošt's initiative, the whole department concentrated on the preparation of a monograph on denervated muscle. Arnošt suggested the content and assigned chapters for writing; where necessary, the material was expanded with new experiments. Pavel Hník translated the finished text and the book entitled The Denervated Muscle, edited by Gutmann and Hník (1962), was published just in time to be distributed to the foreign participants of the satellite symposium of the Physiological Congress organized by our department. The book informed them about the issues and the work of the department, stimulated and increased their interest in our papers and contributed to the success of the symposium. The book is being cited and, although this issue is not continued in our country, research in the world builds on it and further develops it.

The 1962 symposium on the influence of activity and inactivity on neuromuscular functions, organized by the Second Department under the aegis of the IUPS in Liblice as part of the 22nd Physiological Congress in Leyden, was of great importance for its development. It was attended by more than 50 guests from all over the world, so Czechoslovak Airlines sent them and the Czechoslovak physiologists on a special plane to Prague. A number of prominent physiologists were among the participants. John Eccles opened the symposium with a lecture on neuromuscular relations; he also wrote the preface to the symposium volume "Use and disuse..." (edited by Gutmann and Hník, Academia, Prague, 1963).

The symposium and the two books strengthened Arnošt Gutmann's reputation and boosted the citation of the department's works; the number of foreign visits and internships as well as repeated working stays in our country increased once again. As a result of agreements negotiated at the symposium long-term stays in foreign laboratories were carried out, which helped to raise the department's methodological level.

The department continued to grow, new people arrived (Vyklický, Hájek, Syrový, Jakoubek) and the original aspirants - now candidates of science - launched their own groups (Beránek, Hudlická, Zelená) as well as accepted new postgrads (Vyskočil, Kučera, Jirmanová amongst others). The increasing specialisation and broadening of the subject matter of the groups have somewhat weakened the interconnectedness of the departments. Arnošt's post-symposium intention - to centre all the staff’s attention on the muscle reinnervation research and to publish another joint monograph - could no longer be realised. After the department had grown to 23 scientists its cohesion was strengthened by joint seminars, where papers to be published and all communications to be presented at Physiological Days and other events were still actively discussed. The friendly atmosphere, the feeling of solidarity, mutual help and intellectual stimulation were largely maintained thanks to Arnošt.

At that time, the scope of the topic was expanded to include research on the properties of fast and slow muscles and their changes after nerve crossing (work of several groups); the study of post-denervation hypertrophy of some muscles, changes in the nervous system due to muscle activity and inactivity, and the influence of hormones on the neuromuscular apparatus. The study of the influence of hormones showed the dependence of the development of muscle important in the sexual activity of male rats on testosterone. Female rats do not have this muscle and males do not develop it when testosterone is absent. The results of Hudlicka and her group’s work showed that muscle atrophy of various origins is not caused by a lack of blood flow or capillary permeability, nor by a lack of oxygen. Studies of aging (Gutmann and others) focused on the questions of whether muscle atrophy and motor unit loss are caused by reduced activity in old age, inherent impairment of motor unit function, or by environmental change. Such questions have remained the subject of research in a number of laboratories up to the present day.

Arnošt Gutmann initiated the establishment of the Physiological Society and co-founded and edited the journal Czechoslovak Physiology, alongside which Physiologia Bohemoslovaca was later launched for the purpose of publishing papers in English. In our seminars, English was spoken and reported during the assessment of the English papers. Pavel Hník had great merit in this respect: Since he had studied high school in England during the war, he had been tutoring us and other interested people from the Institute in English for years after the establishment of the department; Pavel also tended to the language level of the journal Physiologia Bohemoslovaca almost until the end of his life. Our knowledge of English enabled us to submit papers to foreign journals from the mid-1950s onwards, hence we published in the journal Nature, among others.

The 1960s boom peaked and ended in 1968. After the occupation, many emigrated, but Arnošt chose to stay. Because he signed 2,000 words, he was denied membership in the party and the leadership of the department. Nevertheless, he remained a leading authority for us until his sudden death.   

There is no doubt that under the leadership of Arnošt Gutmann the department significantly contributed to the development of physiology in Czechoslovakia and that it achieved wide international recognition. Although the issue is no longer being pursued in the Czech Republic, a number of laboratories, particularly in Italy, are still addressing the questions originally raised by Gutmann. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Arnošt's death, a symposium was organized in Padua in 2007, the papers of which were published in the journal Basic & Applied Myology,17, numbers 3 & 4, 2007 (editor U. Carrara).

text: Olga Hudlická, Gerta Vrbová, Jiřina Zelená
 

Arnošt Gutmann and Sidney Hilton (right), 1957