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KOLLIKER, RUDOLPH ALBERT VON (1817-1905)

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Originally appearing in Volume V15, Page 890 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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KOLLIKER, See also:RUDOLPH See also:ALBERT VON (1817-1905) , Swiss anatomist and physiologist, was See also:born at See also:Zurich on the 6th of See also:July 18r7. His See also:father and his See also:mother were both Zurich See also:people, and he in due See also:time married a See also:lady from See also:Aargau, so that Switzer-See also:land can claim him as wholly her own, though he lived the greater See also:part of his See also:life in See also:Germany. His See also:early See also:education was carried on in Zurich, and he entered the university there in 1836. After two years, however, he moved to the university of See also:Bonn, and later to that of See also:Berlin, becoming at the latter See also:place the See also:pupil of Johannes See also:Muller and of F. G. J. See also:Henle. He graduated in See also:philosophy at Zurich in 1841, and in See also:medicine at See also:Heidelberg in 1842. The first See also:academic See also:post which he held was that of prosector of See also:anatomy under Henle; but his See also:tenure of this See also:office was brief, for in 1844 his native See also:city called him back to its university to occupy a See also:chair as See also:professor extraordinary of See also:physiology and See also:comparative. anatomy. His stay here too, however, was brief, for in 1847 the university of Wi.irzburg, attracted by his rising fame, offered him the post of professor of physiology and of microscopical and comparative anatomy. He accepted the See also:appointment, and at See also:Wurzburg he remained thenceforth, refusing all offers tempting him to leave the quiet academic life of the Bavarian See also:town, where he died on the and of See also:November 1905. Kolliker's name will ever be associated with that of the See also:tool with which during his See also:long life he so assiduously and successfully worked, the See also:microscope.

The time at which he began his studies coincided with that of the revival of the microscopic investigation of living beings. Two centuries earlier the See also:

great See also:Italian See also:Malpighi had started, and with his own See also:hand had carried far the study by the help of the microscope of the See also:minute structure of animals and See also:plants. After Malpighi this See also:branch of knowledge, though continually progressing, made no remarkable See also:bounds for-See also:ward until the second See also:quarter of the 19th See also:century, when the improvement of the See also:compound microscope on the one hand, and the promulgation by Theodor See also:Schwann and See also:Matthias See also:Schleiden of the " See also:cell theory " on the other, inaugurated a new era of microscopic investigation. Into this new learning Kolliker threw himself with all the zeal of youth, wisely initiated into it by his great teacher Henle, whose sober and exact mode of inquiry went far at the time to give the new learning a right direction and to counteract the somewhat fantastic views which, under the name of the cell theory, were tending to be prominent. Henle's labours were for the most part limited to the microscopic investigation of the minute structure of the tissues of See also:man and of the higher animals, the latter being studied by him mainly with the view of illustrating the former. But Kolliker had another teacher besides Henle, the even greater Johannes Muller, whose active mind was sweeping over the whole See also:animal See also:kingdom, striving to See also:pierce the secrets of the structure of living creatures of all sorts, and keeping steadily in view the wide biological problems of See also:function and of origin, which the facts of structure might serve to solve. We may probably trace to the See also:influence of these two great teachers, strengthened by the spirit of the times, the threefold See also:character of Kolliker's long-continued and varied labours. In all of them, or in almost all of them, the microscope was the See also:instrument of inquiry, but the problem to be solved by means of the instrument belonged now to one branch of See also:biology, now to another. At Zurich, and afterwards at Wiirzburg, the See also:title of the chair which he held laid upon him the See also:duty of teaching comparative anatomy, and very many of the numerous See also:memoirs which he published, including the very first See also:paper which he wrote, and which appeared in 1841 before he graduated, " On the Nature of the so-called Seminal Animalcules," were directed towards elucidating, by help of the microscope, the structure of animals of the most varied kinds—that is to say, were zoological in character. Notable among these were his papers on the Medusae and allied cteatures. His activity in this direction led him to make zoological excursions to the Mediterranean See also:Sea and to the coasts of See also:Scotland, as well as to undertake, conjointly with his friend C. T.

E. von See also:

Siebold, the editorship of the Zeitschrift See also:fur Wissensc.haftliche Zoologie, which, founded in 1848, continued under his hands to be one of the most important zoological See also:periodicals. At the time when Kolliker was beginning his career the influence of Karl See also:Ernst von See also:Baer's embryological teaching was already being ,widely See also:felt, men were learning to recognize the importance to morphological and zoological studies of a knowledge of the development of animals; and Kolliker plunged with See also:enthusiasm into the relatively new See also:line of inquiry. His earlier efforts were directed to the invertebrata, and his memoir on the development of cephalopods, which appeared in 1844, is a classical See also:work; but he soon passed on to the See also:vertebrata, and studied not only the amphibian embryo and the chick, but also the mammalian embryo. He was among the first, if not the very first, to introduce into this branch of biological inquiry the newer microscopic technique—the methods of hardening, See also:section-cutting and staining. By doing so, not only was he enabled to make rapid progress himself, but he also placed in the hands of others the means of a like advance. The remarkable strides for-ward which See also:embryology made during the See also:middle and during the latter See also:half of the 19th century will always be associated with his name. His Lectures on Development, published in 1861, at once became a See also:standard work. But neither See also:zoology nor embryology furnished Kolliker's See also:chief claim to fame. If he did much for these branches of See also:science, he did still more for See also:histology, the knowledge of the minute structure of the animal tissues. This he made emphatically his own. It may indeed be said that there is no fragment of the See also:body of man and of the higher animals on which he did not leave his See also:mark, and in more places than one his mark was a mark of fundamental importance. Among his earlier results may be mentioned the demonstration in 1847 that smooth or unstriated muscle is made up of distinct See also:units, of nucleated muscle-cells.

In this work he followed in the footsteps of his See also:

master Henle. A few years before this men were doubting whether See also:arteries were See also:muscular, and no solid histological basis as yet existed for those views as to the See also:action of the See also:nervous See also:system on the circulation, which were soonto be put forward, and which had such a great influence on the progress of physiology. By the above See also:discovery Kolliker completed that basis. Even to enumerate, certainly to dwell on, all his contributions to histology would be impossible here: smooth muscle, striated muscle, skin, See also:bone, See also:teeth, See also:blood-vessels and viscera were all investigated by him; and he touched none of them without striking out some new truths. The results at which he arrived were recorded partly in See also:separate memoirs, partly in his great textbook on microscopical anatomy, which first saw the See also:light in 1850, and by which he advanced histology no less than by his own researches. In the See also:case of almost every See also:tissue our See also:present knowledge contains something great or small which we owe to Kolliker; but it is on the nervous system that his name is written in largest letters. So early as 1845, while still at Zurich, he supplied what was as yet still lacking, the clear See also:proof that See also:nerve-See also:fibres are continuous with nerve-cells, and so furnished the absolutely necessary basis for all See also:sound speculations as to the actions of the central nervous system. From that time onward he continually laboured, and always fruitfully,, at the histology of the nervous system, and more especially at the .difficult problems presented by the intricate patterns in which fibres and cells are See also:woven together in the See also:brain and See also:spinal See also:cord. In his old See also:age, at a time when he had fully earned the right to See also:fold his arms, and to See also:rest and be thankful, he still enriched neurological science with results of the highest value. From his early days a master of method, he saw at a glance the value of the new Golgi method for the investigation of the central nervous system, and, to the great benefit of science, took up once more in his old age, with the aid of a new means, the studies for which he had done so much in his youth. It may truly be said that much of that exact knowledge of the inner structure of the brain, which is rendering possible new and faithful conceptions of its working, came from his hands. Lastly, Kolliker was in his earlier years professor of physiology as well as of anatomy; and not only did his histological labours almost always carry physiological lessons, but he also enriched physiology with the results of See also:direct researches of an experimental See also:kind, notably those on curare and some other poisons.

In fact, we have to go back to the science of centuries ago to find a man of science of so many-sided an activity as he. His life constituted in a certain sense a protest against that specialized differentiation which, however much it may under certain aspects be regretted, seems to be one of the necessities of See also:

modern development. In Johannes Muller's days no one thought of parting anatomy and physiology; nowadays no one thinks of joining them together. Kolliker did in his work join them together, and indeed said himself that he thought they ought never to be kept apart. Naturally a man of so much accomplishment was not See also:left with-out honours. Formerly known simply as Kolliker, the title " von " was added to his name. He was made a member of the learned See also:societies of many countries; in See also:England, which he visited more than once, and where he became well known, the Royal Society made him a See also:fellow in 186o, and in 1897 gave him its highest token of esteem, the See also:Copley See also:medal. (M.

End of Article: KOLLIKER, RUDOLPH ALBERT VON (1817-1905)

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