On 6 October 1939, the pharmacologist Hans Horst Meyer died in Vienna.
Meyer was Professor of Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Vienna, served as Dean of the Medical Faculty and as Rector. He is considered one of the most important pioneers of experimental pharmacology in Austria. From his school, several Nobel laureates emerged, including Otto Loewi.
Already retired in 1924, Meyer was persecuted as Jewish during National Socialism. He was expelled from the German Academy of Sciences and the Prussian Academy of Sciences as a so-called “non-Aryan”. He resigned from the Vienna Academy of Sciences to forestall his expulsion.
In 1953, a monument to Meyer was unveiled in the arcaded courtyard of the University of Vienna.
