Gustav Wilhelm August Josef Ricker (November 2, 1870 - September 23, 1948) was a German physician and pathologist born in Hadamar, Hesse-Nassau.
He studied philosophy and medicine at several universities, earning his doctorate in 1893 at the University of Berlin. In 1897 he received his habilitation under Albert Thierfelder (1842-1908) at the University of Rostock, and from 1906 until 1933 was head of pathology at the city hospitals (Altstadt and Sudenburg) in Magdeburg. Afterwards, he worked as a private scholar in Berlin and Dresden.
Ricker is remembered for his Stufengesetz (law of stages), relating the intensity of neural stimulation to blood flow in capillaries,[1] and also Relationspathologie (relational pathology), in which he maintains that the root of pathological processes are a neural process and not a cellular process.
Today in Magdeburg, Gustav-Ricker-Straße and Gustav-Ricker-Krankenhaus are named in his honor.