Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann (; 1 July 1801 – 21 April 1877) was a German
physiologist
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out chemical and ...
,
anatomist
Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...
, and
philosopher
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
. He specialized in the study of the nervous and optic system.
Biography
Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann was born in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, and enrolled in medicine there in 1821. Together with
Gustav Theodor Fechner
Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he inspired ...
, who got his degree in medicine in 1822, and
Rudolph Hermann Lotze
Rudolf Hermann Lotze (; ; 21 May 1817 – 1 July 1881) was a German philosopher and logician. He also had a medical degree and was well versed in biology. He argued that if the physical world is governed by mechanical laws and relations, then dev ...
(1817–1881), they formed a small intellectual group which dissolved only in 1837 when Volkmann received his professorship in
Dorpat
Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...
(now
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 97,759 (as of 2024). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of Riga, Latvia. Tartu lies on the Emajõgi river, which connects the ...
).
In 1826 he obtained his doctorate and in 1828 he was habilitated as ''
Privatdozent
''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...
'' at the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
. It was there that he became professor extraordinary of zootomy in 1834. In 1837 he went to Dorpat as professor of physiology,
pathology
Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...
and
semiotics
Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter.
Semiosis is a ...
. However, his residence in Dorpat was short: he left for
Halle as early as 1843. After moving to Halle, Volkmann helped
Gustav Theodor Fechner
Gustav Theodor Fechner (; ; 19 April 1801 – 18 November 1887) was a German physicist, philosopher, and experimental psychologist. A pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics (techniques for measuring the mind), he inspired ...
, his brother-in-law (married to Volkmann's sister
Clara Fechner), with many experiments that formed the foundation of the epochal ''Elemente der Psychophysik''.
(his daughter Anna Anschütz was later experimental subject for Fechner).
In 1854 Volkmann additionally took on the teaching of anatomy, until 1872, when physiology was branched off and given to
Julius Bernstein
Julius Bernstein (18 December 1839 – 6 February 1917) was a German physiologist born in Berlin. His father was Aaron Bernstein (1812–1884), a founder of the Reform Judaism Congregation in Berlin 1845; his son was the mathematician Felix Ber ...
.
Volkmann's house in
Halle an der Saale
Halle (Saale), or simply Halle (), is the second largest city of the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is the sixth-most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz and Magdeburg as well as t ...
was a center of the city's social life. Among his friends were the painters
Wilhelm von Kügelgen
Wilhelm Georg Alexander von Kügelgen (20 November 1802, in St.Petersburg – 25 May 1867, in Ballenstedt) was a German portrait and history painter, writer, and Chamberlain (office), chamberlain at the Court of Anhalt-Bernburg. He is best kn ...
,
Friedrich Preller and
Ludwig Richter
Adrian Ludwig Richter (September 28, 1803June 19, 1884) was a German painter and etcher, who was strongly influenced by Erhard and Daniel Chodowiecki, Chodowiecki. He was a representative of both Romanticism and Biedermeier styles.
He was th ...
, as well as the musicians
Robert Franz
Robert Franz Julius Knauth (28 June 1815 – 24 October 1892) was a German composer, mainly of lieder.
Biography
Franz was born in Halle, Germany, the son of Christoph Franz Knauth. In 1847, Christoph Knauth adopted his middle name Franz as his ...
, and
Clara
Clara may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Clara'' (2018 film), a Canadian sci-fi drama
* ''Clara'' (2019 film), a Ukrainian animated fantasy film
* ''Clara'' (TV series), a German TV series
* Clara the Cow, mascot of the Greek TV show '' P ...
and
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; ; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and music critic of the early Romantic music, Romantic era. He composed in all the main musical genres of the time, writing for solo piano, voice and piano, chamber ...
.
In 1872, after his fiftieth doctoral jubilee, he retired completely from his university activities.
He died in Halle.
Research
Today, Volkmann is most remembered for his additions to the physiology of the nervous system and physiological optics. In 1842 he demonstrated that
sympathetic nerves
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS or SANS, sympathetic autonomic nervous system, to differentiate it from the somatic nervous system) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous sy ...
were largely made up of medullated fibres arising from
sympathetic and spinal
ganglia
A ganglion (: ganglia) is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system, this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system, there a ...
. However, he also delineated and identified numerous features of gross anatomy, including ''
Volkmann's canals
Volkmann's canals, also known as perforating holes or channels, are anatomic arrangements in cortical bones that allow blood vessels to enter the bones from periosteum. They interconnect the Haversian canals (running inside osteons) with each oth ...
''. Probably equally important, however, are his contributions to
psychophysics
Psychophysics is the field of psychology which quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimulus (physiology), stimuli and the sensation (psychology), sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described ...
and
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
research. Fechner developed his classical psychophysical ''Method of average error'' (already in use in astronomy) in co-operation with Volkmann.
In his 1864 treatise,
Volkmann studied
Weber's law and reported that the threshold for distance discrimination increases with the increase of the reference distance. This was one of the first demonstrations of Weber's law in the visual domain.
Volkmann's extensive experimental data in that book
was the main basis on which
Ewald Hering
Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering (5 August 1834 – 26 January 1918) was a German physiologist who did much research in color vision, binocular perception, eye movements, and hyperacuity. He proposed opponent color theory in 1892.
Born in Gersd ...
developed his theory of hyperacuity in 1899.
Philosophically, Volkmann was an
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...
who opposed
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
and gave a number of speeches against the materialist assumption of identity between the body and mind.
Family
Richard von Volkmann
Richard von Volkmann (17 August 1830 – 28 November 1889) was a prominent German surgeon and author of poetry and fiction. Some of his works were illustrated by his son, Hans, a well known artist.
Biography
He was born in Leipzig on 17 Augus ...
, his son, became a distinguished surgeon.
Works
*''Anatomy of Animals'' (1831–33)
*''The Independence of the Sympathetic System of Nerves'' (1842)
*''Elasticity of Muscles'' (1856)
*''Physiological Investigations in the Field of Optics (Physiologische Untersuchungen im Gebiete der Optik)'' (1863)
[Partial Translation by Strasburger & Rose]
References
Sources
* B.G. Firkin & J.A.Whitworth (1987). ''Dictionary of Medical Eponyms''. Parthenon Publishing.
*
External links
Short biography and bibliography
in the Virtual Laboratory The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life. T ...
of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (German: Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte) is a scientific research institute founded in March 1994. It is dedicated to addressing fundamental questions of the history of knowled ...
Halle University's page (in German)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Volkmann, Alfred Wilhelm
1801 births
1877 deaths
German physiologists
People from the Kingdom of Saxony
Leipzig University alumni
Academic staff of Leipzig University
Academic staff of the University of Tartu
Academic staff of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg
Rectors of the University of Tartu