Electric forearm prosthesis, maker: Reinhold Reiter, ca. 1945, ca. 43.5 × 8.5 cm (diameter), wood, metals, and other materials. KIT Alpine Campus, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research Department, Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
The career of Dr. Reinhold Reiter (1920–1998) ranges from the invention of a prosthetic arm to groundbreaking research in physical bioclimatology and climate science. The Alpine Campus in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, now part of KIT, can trace its origins back to the research institute he established. At just 14 years of age, Reiter was already experimenting with electrical X-ray phenomena. As an assistant at the Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine in Munich, he began developing an electric hand prosthesis in 1943, which he called the “electric artificial hand.” Reiter discovered that certain atmospheric electrical conditions could cause control of the prosthesis by the muscles in the arm stump to fail. These conditions also altered his patients’ sensation of pain. In 1948, he presented his hand prosthesis at the Hanover Export Fair and published a scientific paper on it. Unfortunately, he was unable to develop his artificial hand further when the investor company went bankrupt. Reiter began in 1954 to research, in an observatory he had built himself, what atmospheric disturbances might have affected the artificial hand and noticed that radioactive trace elements had also been involved. The question was, where these substances came from: Did they come from the ground or the atmosphere? Possibly even from far away? This problem interested the US Air Force when it was conducting atomic bomb experiments, above all, in the Asiatic and Pacific regions. Its funding supported the establishment of other measurement stations, also on the peak of Zug Mountain at almost 3,000 m above sea level. The distribution of radioactive particles then measurable at that altitude confirmed that they came from remote atmospheric transmission. These measurements of atmospheric radioactivity were the starting point of the scope of topics now occupying atmospheric environmental research. They include research on acidic rain in the 1980s and air pollution in the 1990s. One current focus is, recording the regional consequences of global warming, such as in the form of torrential rains or droughts. In 1962 the Institute of Atmospheric Environmental Research founded by Reiter was incorporated into the Fraunhofer Society. On January 1, 2002 its transfer over to Karlsruhe Research Center as the fourth division of the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK) was completed. as
We regard this exhibit [the hand prosthesis] as the point of departure or starting point for our institute’s founding in 1954, 70 years ago. KIT, Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research – Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Garmisch-Partenkirchen