Values> Origin> Who actually is Dr. Rudolf Hauschka?
ValuesOriginWho actually is Dr. Rudolf Hauschka?
- A life for science
- Archive finds
A life for science
The most important scientific legacy of Dr. Rudolf Hauschka is certainly responsible for the development of a process for obtaining aqueous medicinal plant extracts without preservative alcohol in 1929. Used since 1935 for the production of WALA preparations, it turned the pharmaceutical paradigm on its head and is now recognized as a process in the Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia codified for drug production. Also in the Dr. Hauschka Kosmetik has been using the plant extracts obtained in this way to develop their effects since 1967.
Rudolf Emil Hauschka was born on November 6, 1891 in Vienna, the first of three children. Rudolf Hauschka was born with a connection to nature and an enthusiasm for all things material: his great-grandfather was a shepherd and his father ran a blacksmith shop, which he expanded to include a galvanizing business. Rudolf Hauschka's thirst for scientific knowledge awoke at the age of 14 - he was particularly fond of spherical trigonometry. The hyperbole thrilled him. The curve shows how one of its branches disappears into infinity and comes back visible as its other branch. “In between lies an area of the invisible, perhaps inaccessible to our thinking,” Hauschka wrote in his biography. Hauschka became convinced that there was a world beyond the one that can be experienced through the senses, a driving force behind all life. He saw it as his task to develop this phenomenon in drug production and make it accessible to people. Rudolf Hauschka studied technical chemistry at the Imperial and Royal Technical University of Vienna from 1909 to 1913. In 1914 he received his doctorate with an investigation into dyes from the group of anilidoquinones.
After the war, he became chief chemist at “Pharmazeutischen Industrie AG Klosterneuburg/Wien” and from there moved to “Mannesmann Motorenwerke” in Cologne. Later he quickly founded the “Chemische Fabrik Dr.” in a corrugated iron shed in Cologne-Porz. R. Hauschka GmbH". At that time, Hauschka produced acetic clay, seed dressings, lanolin and individual herbal medicines.
However, he received the essential impulses for his further path as a scientist, which ultimately led to the development of the WALA manufacturing process, from the founder of anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, at a personal meeting. His suggestion that “rhythm carries life” prompted Hauschka to look into extraction processes that took into account the polarities of nature such as rest and movement, heat and cold, day and night and, for the first time, made long-lasting aqueous medicinal plant extracts possible without alcohol.
However, that wasn't enough: throughout his life, Rudolf Hauschka remained a seeker, an explorer of nature. Just two years before his death, he ventured into a new line of products intended for the health and care of the largest human organ, the skin. It was the birth of Dr. Hauschka cosmetics.
Archive finds
Dissertations/doctoral theses
Since early childhood he has been driven to understand the natural world. Chemistry gave him the necessary tools for this. On June 6, 1914, Rudolf Hauschka received his doctorate at the Royal Technical University of Vienna as “Dr. technical.” on dyes from the group of anilidoquinones. His wife Margarethe also brought her knowledge as a doctor of medicine to the work of WALA.
Cosmetic Chemistry Handbook
Rudolf Hauschka was one of the authors of the “Handbook of Cosmetic Chemistry” (Leipzig: Barth 1920) on the subject of mineral drugs and metals. It was created during his time at “Pharmazeutische Industrie AG” in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. A number of patents in his name that the company had registered also date from this time.
Laboratory diaries and mother tinctures
Rudolf Hauschka meticulously documented his research results in laboratory diaries. They also contain early recipes for skin creams. Many of his medicinal plant extracts from the 1950s and 1960s have remained stable to this day, even though they do not contain any preservatives such as alcohol.
Dietetics and charts
Rudolf Hauschka meticulously documented his research results in laboratory diaries. They also contain early recipes for skin creams. Many of his medicinal plant extracts from the 1950s and 1960s have remained stable to this day, even though they do not contain any preservatives such as alcohol.
Correspondence
Rudolf Hauschka was not only a passionate researcher, but also a hard-working writer. There are three meters of documents in his estate. This includes many correspondence with doctors - and with the cosmetologist Elisabeth Sigmund, with whom he founded Dr. Hauschka Cosmetics developed.
