Émile-Hippolyte Betz
Émile-Hippolyte Betz was appointed Rector in the midst of an economic crisis. The University's financial situation collapsed from 1976 onwards, then again in 1982, as the legal allowance was reduced and made conditional on a reduction in staff. Despite a special subsidy of 550 million for construction projects that had ground to a halt, the University of Liège's deficit continued to grow, as did that of other Belgian universities.
Born in Arlon on November 22, 1922, Émile-Hippolyte Betz became a doctor of medicine in 1944. He began his career as a university researcher at the dawn of a new era, the post-war period, and a new stage in science, described by the concept of Big Science, characterized both by teamwork supplanting individual work, and by the specialization of scientific disciplines.
Betz proved himself to Professor of Pathological Anatomy Jean Firket. It was here that he found the discipline in which he intended to perfect his skills, initially abroad, with stays at the University of Zurich and the Kansas University Medical Center.
Back in Liège, he worked his way up through the ranks of assistant, chef de travaux and agrégé de faculté. He became a lecturer in 1951, and full professor of pathological anatomy the following year. He taught for a quarter of a century, until 1985. During this unbroken period of his life, he was head of the Department of Pathological Anatomy at Bavarian Hospital, and director of the Provincial Tumor Analysis Service.
In this respect, he was particularly attentive to the issue of cancer screening, and in fact became Director of the Cancer Center attached to the University of Liège. This battle against the disease of the century is the inevitable consequence of his ground-breaking scientific work in radiobiology, and his studies into the effects of radiation on the endocrine system that causes cancer, as well as into the mechanisms of radioprotectors. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we entered the nuclear age, and his passion for research is fueled by his conscience as a physician. He also supported the development in Belgium of the first steps in electron microscopy.
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine between 1971 and 1977, he was Rector of the University of Liège from 1977 to 1985, a difficult period during which the University of Liège suffered severe financial difficulties, against a backdrop of deep economic crisis and severe government measures against public deficits. Despite the turmoil, he worked hard to set up the CHU in the Sart Tilman area.
He was a member of the Royal Academy of Medicine, the Belgian Society of Pathological Anatomy, and the European Society of Radiobiology, of which he was one of the founders. He chaired a number of FNRS scientific commissions, including one on oncology.
He died on July 31, 2012.
