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Hermann Munk (3 February 1839 – 1 October 1912) 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 ...
. He was born at Posen, studied at
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
and
Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
, and in 1862 became docent in the former university. Seven years afterward he was promoted to assistant professor, and in 1876 to
professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
of
physiology Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...
at the veterinary college at Berlin. Besides studies on the productive methods of threadworms, Munk wrote on the physiology of the
nerve A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons). Nerves have historically been considered the basic units of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the Electrochemistry, electrochemical nerv ...
s and especially on the
brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...
.


Visual cortex

Hermann Munk made important contributions to the field of psychology regarding the route from the eye to the brain through his meticulous research methods.The Human Brain and Spinal Cord: A Historical Study Illustrated by Writings from Antiquity to the Twentieth Century. By Edwin Clark and C.D. O’Malley copyright 1996 Norman Publishing In 1878, he published findings from studies involving dogs and monkeys that led to the conclusion that vision was localized in the occipital cortical area. Amid scrutiny, he repeated his study and published similar findings in 1881. His focus was on dogs and he, unlike many others of his time, kept his subjects alive for an average of 5 years in order to study long-term effects.Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations into Brain Function by Stanley Finger, Oxford University Press, 2001 Throughout his research he discovered that cortical lesions in the visual areas lead to blindness. He called blindness experienced after the posterior portion of the occipital cortex was damaged Seelenblindheit, or psychic blindness. While suffering from psychic blindness, dogs were able to navigate effectively but showed no sign that they recognized what the objects in front of them were when they were only allowed to use sight. The dogs normally recovered from psychic blindness in 4 to 6 weeks and did appear to relearn faster than they first learned object meanings. The second type of blindness, Rindenblindheit, or cortical blindness, results from much larger lesions in the occipital cortex. Cortical blindness appears as a complete loss of vision and shows that vision involves areas surrounding the occipital cortex.


Selected bibliography

* ''Untersuchungen über das Wesen der Nervenerregung'' (1868) * ''Ueber die Funktionen der Grosshirnrinde'' (1881; second edition, 1890) * ''Ueber die Ausdehnung der Sinnessphären in der Grosshirnrinde'' (1901–1902) * ''Ueber die Functionen des Kleinhirns'' (1906–1908) * ''Zur Anatomie und Physiologie der Sehsphäre der Grosshirnrinde'' (1910) * This article incorporates text from an article in the '' New International Encyclopedia'' (first edition, 1902), now in public domain.


References


External links

*''Jewish Encyclopedia:'
"Munk, Hermann"
by Isidore Singer & Frederick Haneman (1906). German physiologists 1839 births 1912 deaths German male writers Biologists from the Kingdom of Prussia {{Germany-biologist-stub