Johannes Peter Müller (14 July 1801 – 28 April 1858) was a German
physiologist,
comparative anatomist,
ichthyologist, and
herpetologist, known not only for his discoveries but also for his ability to synthesize knowledge. The
paramesonephric duct
Paramesonephric ducts (or Müllerian ducts) are paired ducts of the embryo that run down the lateral sides of the genital ridge and terminate at the sinus tubercle in the primitive urogenital sinus. In the female, they will develop to form the ...
(Müllerian duct) was named in his honor.
Life
Early years and education
Müller was born in
Coblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary.
Koblenz was established as a Roman military post by Drusus around 8 B.C. Its nam ...
. He was the son of a poor
shoemaker
Shoemaking is the process of making footwear.
Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or cobblers (also known as ''cordwainers''). In the 18th century, dozens or even hundreds of masters, journeymen an ...
, and was about to be apprenticed to a
saddle
The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...
r when his talents attracted the attention of his teacher, and he prepared himself to become a Roman Catholic Priest.
[ During his ]college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...
course in Koblenz, he devoted himself to the classics and made his own translations of Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
. At first, his intention was to become a priest.[
When he was eighteen, his love for natural science became dominant, and he turned to medicine,] entering the University of Bonn in 1819. There he received his M.D. in 1822. He then studied at the University of Berlin. There, under the influence of Georg Hegel and Karl Rudolphi, he was induced to reject all systems of physiology which were not founded upon a strict observation of nature. He habilited there in 1824.
Career summary
He became '' Privatdozent'' of physiology and comparative anatomy at the University of Bonn in 1824, extraordinary professor of physiology in 1826, and ordinary professor in 1830. In 1833 he went to the University of Berlin, where he filled the chair of anatomy and physiology until his death.
Early research
Müller made contributions in numerous domains of physiology, in particular increasing understanding of the voice, speech and hearing, as well as the chemical and physical properties of lymph
Lymph (from Latin, , meaning "water") is the fluid that flows through the lymphatic system, a system composed of lymph vessels (channels) and intervening lymph nodes whose function, like the venous system, is to return fluid from the tissues ...
, chyle
Chyle (from the Greek word χυλός ''chylos'', "juice") is a milky bodily fluid consisting of lymph and emulsified fats, or free fatty acids (FFAs). It is formed in the small intestine during digestion of fatty foods, and taken up by lymph ...
and blood. His first important works, ''Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinns'' (''On the comparative physiology of sight'', Leipzig, 1826) and ''Über die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen'' (''On visual hallucination'', Coblenz, 1826), are of a subjective philosophical tendency. The first work concerns the most important facts as to human and animal sight, the second sounds depths of difficult psychological problems. He soon became the leader in the science of the morphological treatment of zoology as well as of experimental physiology. To his research (1830) is due the settlement of the theory of reflex action.
''Elements of Physiology''
In the century preceding Müller's work, many contributions to physiological science had been made. Müller gave order to these facts, developed general principles and showed physiologists how recent discoveries in physics and chemistry could be applied to their work.
The appearance of his '' magnum opus'', ''Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen'', between 1833 and 1840 (translated into English as ''Elements of Physiology'' by William Baly, and published in London 1837–1843) marked the beginning of a new period in the study of physiology. In it, for the first time, the results of human and comparative anatomy, as well as of chemistry
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
and other departments of physical science, and tools like the microscope
A microscope () is a laboratory instrument used to examine objects that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. Microscopy is the science of investigating small objects and structures using a microscope. Microscopic means being invisi ...
, were brought to bear on the investigation of physiological problems.
The most important portion of the work was that dealing with nervous action and the mechanism of the senses. Here he stated the principle, previously recognized but not stated as clearly, that the kind of sensation following stimulation of a sensory nerve does not depend on the mode of stimulation but upon the nature of the sense organ. Thus light, pressure, or mechanical stimulation acting on the retina and optic nerve invariably produces luminous impressions. This he termed the law of specific energies of the sense.
The book became the leading textbook in physiology for much of the nineteenth century. It manifests Müller's interests in vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
, philosophy and scientific rigor. He discusses the difference between inorganic and organic matter. He considers in detail various physiological systems of a wide variety of animals, but attributes the indivisible whole of an organism to the presence of a soul. He also proposes that living organisms possess a life-energy for which physical laws can never fully account.
Edward Forbes
Edward Forbes FRS, FGS (12 February 1815 – 18 November 1854) was a Manx naturalist. In 1846, he proposed that the distributions of montane plants and animals had been compressed downslope, and some oceanic islands connected to the mainlan ...
F.R.S. in his '' A History of British Starfishes, and Other Animals of the Class Echinodermata '' (1841) in his preface refers to Muller as the "one of the greatest living physiologists, Muller of Berlin".
Later years
In the later part of his life he chiefly devoted himself to comparative anatomy. Fishes and marine invertebrates were his favorite subjects. He took 19 trips to the Baltic
Baltic may refer to:
Peoples and languages
*Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian
*Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...
and North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...
, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
to investigate salt-water life.
He authored a comprehensive work on the anatomy of amphibians, which in his era including reptiles. Also, he described several new species of snakes.
Müller mentored such distinguished scientists and physiologists as Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Associat ...
, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Fritz Müller, Theodor Schwann, Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle, Ernst Wilhelm Brücke, Carl Ludwig and Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist and artist. He discovered, described and named thousands of new s ...
. In 1834, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1846, the American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
elected him an international Member.
Müller died in Berlin in 1858. In 1899, a bronze statue by Joseph Uphues
Joseph Johann Ludwig Uphues (23 May 1850, Sassenberg – 2 January 1911, Berlin) was a German sculptor.
Life
After an apprenticeship as a carpenter, he embarked on a two-year tour of Belgium and the Netherlands. From 1870 to 1871, he learne ...
was erected in his memory in Koblenz.
Works
In addition to hi
''Handbuch der Physiologie''
(translated by Baly in 1843
of Physiology''
, his publications include:
*''De Respiratione Fœtus'' (Leipzig, 1823), a prize dissertation
*''Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinns'' (1826)
*''Über die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen'' (1826)
*''Bildungsgeschichte der Genitalien'' (1830), in which he traced the development of the Müllerian duct
*''De glandularum secernentium structura penitiori'' (1830)
*''Beiträge zur Anatomie und Naturgeschichte der Amphibien'' (1832)
*''Der Tabak in geschichtlicher, botanischer, chemischer und medizinischer Hinsicht'' (Berlin, 1832)
*''Vergleichende Anatomie der Myxinoiden'' (1834–1843)
*''Ueber die organischen Nerven der erectilen männlichen Geschlechtsorgane . . .'' (Berlin, 1835)
*''Ueber den feineren Bau der krankhaften Geschwülste'' (''On the structural details of malignant tumors'', Coblenz, 1838), unfinished — a pioneering use of microscopical research in the investigation of pathological anatomy
*''Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen'' (1841) with F. G. J. Henle
* (1842) with F. H. Troschel
*''Horae ichthyologicae'' (1845–1849) with Troschel
*''Über die fossilen Reste der Zeuglodonten . . .'' (1848)
*''Über Synopta digitata und über die Erzeugung von Schnecken in Holothurien'' (1852)
After the death of J. F. Meckel (1781–1833) he edited the ''Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie''.
See also
* List of German inventors and discoverers
Taxon described by him
*See :Taxa named by Johannes Peter Müller
Notes
References
Short biography and bibliography
in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
*Berrios G E (2005) On the fantastic apparitions of vision by Johannes Müller. ''History of Psychiatry''. 16:229-46
*
*
*
;Attribution
*
Further reading
* Rudolf Virchow, Virchow, ''Johannes Müller, Eine Gedächtnisrede'' (Berlin, 1858)
* du Bois-Reymond, (''Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie'', Berlin, 1859), containing a list of his works
* Bischoff
Bischoff is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Amaury Bischoff, French-Portuguese footballer
* Anna Catharina Bischoff (1719–1787), wife of pastor Lucas Gernler
* Bernard J. Bischoff (1931–1980), American politician and j ...
, ''Ueber Johannes Müller und sein Verhältnis zum jetztigen Standpunkt der Physiologie'' (Munich, 1858)
* '' Proceedings of the Royal Society of London'', vol. ix., p. 556.
External links
Müller's Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen für Vorlesungen
(1837–1840) as fullscan from the original
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Johannes Peter
1801 births
1858 deaths
German physiologists
19th-century German zoologists
German herpetologists
German ichthyologists
German taxonomists
History of neuroscience
Recipients of the Copley Medal
Foreign Members of the Royal Society
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Humboldt University of Berlin faculty
University of Bonn faculty
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
University of Bonn alumni
Scientists from Koblenz
People from the Rhine Province
German Roman Catholics
Vitalists