After v. Tappeiner had headed the institute for 36 years, Walther Straub followed in 1924. Born in Augsburg on May 8, 1874, Straub studied medicine in Munich, Strasbourg and Tübingen. While still a student, he published his first thesis, carried out under Oswald Schmiedeberg. After passing the state examination in Munich, he received his doctorate in 1897 and then worked under the physiologist Carl Voit. In 1898 he became an assistant to Rudolf Boehm in Leipzig and habilitated only two years later. In 1905 he received a call to Marburg, where he was director of the Pharmacological Institute for one year, and then followed a call to Würzburg and two years later to Freiburg.
The acceptance of the call to Munich was preceded by extensive negotiations with the then Dean Ferdinand Sauerbruch. Straub complained about the inadequate building conditions he found in Munich: "The solid construction prevents wear and tear that would justify tearing down the building, the constriction of the site by apartment buildings that had been built later in the immediate vicinity did not permit the expansion that had become necessary in the meantime, and the unclear building plan is a source of constant annoyance for the users of the building. Finally, during the institute reconstruction carried out in 1931/32, the old Pathological Institute next door was added to the Pharmacological Institute and the two buildings were joined by a 13-meter-long connecting passage made of reinforced concrete, the "Straub Bridge". However, the new Pharmacological Institute was almost completely destroyed again towards the end of the Second World War; fire and explosive bombs put an end to all institute operations in the fall of 1944. Contemporaries report that Walther Straub, sitting under a tree in front of the Psychiatry Department on the opposite side of Nussbaumstrasse, watched the burning of the Institute. He succumbed shortly thereafter to a long-standing stroke in Bad Tölz.
The scientific work of Walther Straub is unusually extensive; in the twenties and thirties of the last century he was therefore considered one of the most important pharmacologists in Germany. Physiology and pharmacology of the heart and a frog heart preparation associated with his name, mechanisms of action of cardiac glycosides, and their standardization were important focal points of his research. The "Straub phenomenon" named after him, which characterizes the effect of morphine on rodents, outlines another field of research. Finally, one of Straub's special achievements was the founding of the "Deutsche Pharmakologische Gesellschaft" (German Pharmacological Society), through which he wanted to make known the independence and importance of our discipline.
The dark times of National Socialism did not leave the Pharmacological Institute unscathed. Straub, in his unbending straightforwardness, had clashed with the powers that be on several occasions, had reacted pointedly to amateurish treatment proposals for phosphorus burns by the responsible police inspectorate, which was under the control of the SS, and only narrowly escaped removal from office during the war. Working conditions were correspondingly difficult and the use of habilitated staff in teaching and examinations was increasingly restricted. In a letter to the dean of the medical faculty in November 1939, Straub complained bitterly that he now had to shoulder alone the education of about 800 medical students annually and that teaching would collapse if he became ill. It did not help, support was no longer given to him.
In 1946, August Wilhelm Forst succeeded his famous teacher Straub as full professor of pharmacology in Munich.