Bárány's law
The various characters of nystagmus in different positions of the head during rotation test are conditioned by the combinational forms of those forms of nystagmus, which have been elicited in each of the semi-circular canals.
(Vienna, April 4th, 1876 – Uppsala, April 8th, 1936)
A Nobel Prize 
winning physician. He attained his most significant results in the field of physiology and diagnostics in otorhinolaryngology.
Bárány's family settled in Várpalota, Hungary, in 1750. His father was the manager of a farm estate and his mother, Maria Hock, was the daughter of a well-known Prague scientist. Robert was the eldest of six children. Owing to tuberculosis of the bones he had permanent stiffness of his kneejoint. Probably this illness first led him to take an interest in medicine.
He attended secondary schools and studied medical university in Vienna and received his doctorate there on April 2, 1900.
One year later, he was an outstanding researcher in metabolism and diabetes. He worked in the department of C. von Noorden in Munich and he also spent a year at the psychiatric-neurological clinic of the named Professor Kraepelin in Freiburg i. Br. It was this time that his interest in neurological problems was awakened.
After his return to Vienna, he received his surgical training at C. Gussenbauer's surgical department, from where he went in 1903 to Ádám Politzer's ear clinic, (who also originated in Hungary) where he was appointed as demonstrator. As an ear-specialist he dealt mainly with neurological problems; clarified the physiology and pathology of human vestibular apparatus; he researched the reasons for vertigo belonging to the frontier zone of otology. His work published in 1907, the objective of which was to make clear the mechanism of nystagmus caused by heat, meant the beginning of a new era in the history of otology. From his observations he was able to analyse the factors governing labyrinthine stimulation.
In 1909 Bárány was habilitated in oto-rhino-laryngology and given the title of Dozent, and in 1912 received half the Politzer Prize.
At the International Congress of Physicians in Budapest in 1909, he made his research results known on the neural control of the canals of the inner ear to the special otology group. In the same year, he became a private professor at the University of Vienna. At the break out of World War I, he volunteered and entered into service as a medical officer. During his service in the field he developed a covered procedure for the treatment of open brain damage. He fell into Russian captivity and was informed in the prisoner's camp that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1914 for his work carried out in the field of the physiology and pathology of the vestibular device (balance organ).
Through the intervention of the Swedish Red Cross he was released in 1916 and was presented with the Nobel Prize by the King of Sweden at.
Bárány returned to Vienna the same year, but was strongly disappointed by the attitude of his Austrian colleagues, who reproached him for having made only incomplete references in his works to the discoveries of other scientists, on whose theories they said his work was based. He is said to have commenced his research on the labyrinth after he had witnessed (1868) Alexander Spitzer's demonstration of labyrinthine nystagmus in experimental animals.
These attacks resulted in Bárány leaving Vienna to accept the post of Principal and Professor of an Otological Institute in Uppsala. He worked there till his death in 1936.
Several medical terms as Bárány's law, Bárány alarm apparatus and the Bárány syndrome also preserve his name.
He developed an operation for healing otosclerotic patients, which is applied in several version and modifications even today. For the treatment of the frontal sinus, the Bárány-Sourdille's double plastic procedure is known. He can be rightly regarded as the founder of otoneurology.
He studied the causes of muscular rheurmatism, and continued writing on his book dealing with this subject even after he had suffered a brainstroke and was partially paralysed.
Honours: Politzer Prize Boston (1912), ERB Medal (named for Wilhelm Heinrich Erb, German neurologist, 1840-1921) of the German Neurological Society (1913), Guyot Prize (Groningen, 1914), Nobel Prize for medicine (1914), honorary doctorate by the University of Stockholm (1924) and Jubilee Medal of the Swedish Physicians Society Stockholm (1925).
In commemoration of his name, the University of Uppsala has awarded a gold medal every 5 years and since 1960, the Bárány Society, established in Padua, has been in operation.
He was member or honorary member of numerous scientific societies.
Robert Bárány published a total of 184 scientific papers.
Selected bibliography: