Johannes Peter Müller

Johannes Peter Müller ( * July 14, 1801 in Koblenz, † April 28, 1858 in Berlin) was a German physiologist, marine biologist and comparative anatomist.

Life

In his birthplace Müller attended high school as a pupil of Joseph Gorres. After completing school Müller served one year with the pioneers in Koblenz before 1819 enrolled at the University of Bonn in medicine. There he was, inter alia, Pupil of the anatomist and physiologist August Franz Joseph Karl Mayer.

He created a scientific paper on the respiration of the fetus, which was awarded a prize by the University and in 1823 appeared in print still a student. Müller graduated in 1822 with a doctorate and joined the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the anatomist Karl Asmund Rudolphi ( 1771-1832 ). Habilitation in 1824 Mueller then in Bonn for physiology and comparative anatomy. In 1826 he received the title of associate professor and full professor in 1830. During his habilitation in 1826 published his two extensive works » For the comparative physiology of vision " and " About the fantastic facial appearances". Despite a call to Freiburg he remained until 1833 at the University of Bonn. Then he succeeded Rudolphi in Berlin. There he was in the years 1833-1840 out his famous " Handbook of Physiology ", which became a worldwide success. He researched basic anatomy and zoology. He received the 1853 Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art, and in 1854 the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in London and the Prix Cuvier of the Paris Academy. In his last years, Müller was attacked repeatedly by depression. On the morning of April 28, 1858 he was found dead in his Berlin apartment; his cause of death remained unknown. Rudolf Virchow held at the funeral on 24 July 1858 in the auditorium of the University of Berlin, the memorial address. Ernst Haeckel continued to publish Müller year of his death work continued to describe the radiolarians ( Radiolaria ).

Work

Johannes Müller is regarded as one of the great natural philosophers of the 19th century; his main work is the "Manual of Human Physiology for lectures ," two volumes in three parts (1833, 1834, 1840). Haeckel described him as the "most important German biologist of the 19th century". A 1872 published Zoology history calls him by name in the title: History of zoology until John Mueller and Charl. Darwin.

Müller also established research into the floating in the sea creatures, which he called On the advice of Jacob Grimm " buoyancy " (today on a proposal from Victor Hensen as " Plankton ") is. In 1832 he made ​​the first microscopic examinations. The resulting 1846 resulting scientific discipline of plankton research in the then British island of Helgoland culminated with a school of faunistically working marine biologists and their work in 1892 in the founding of the " Royal Prussian Biological Institute on Helgoland ", today's Biologische Anstalt Helgoland. The fishing gear used and further developed by Muller for plankton were key tools that brought the Exploration of the Sea a methodological paradigm shift, as later again until the Scuba Diving. He is the first to describe the Radiolaria, a group of marine unicellular organisms that have microscopic skeletal structures. His description of the regularity of the skeletal structure of the subgroup Acantharia later became known as "Miller 's Law " known "You therefore get [.. ] for the Acanthometren with 20 spines the same formula that has 5 belt of spikes between two stingless Poland, each of four spines, all directed by the Community Center around the sphere, and that the spines of each belt old Irish with the previous one. ". The occurring in the plankton larval form of flatworms was named after its discovery " Mullerian larva ".

In 1826 he formulated the law of specific energy, which expresses that each sense organ responds to stimuli of different quality only in his own way. The eye also responds to pressure with a sensation of light ( " see asterisk "). From this he drew the conclusion that the objective reality surrounding us can not be properly recognized or reflected. Almost as a key work of this can his Synapta work (1852 ) apply, in which he indicated the formation of worm larvae in an " organ " of a sea cucumber as a generational change ( between two classes of animals! ) (Rather than parasitism ), making him his earlier clear scientific embossed seemed to be the world untenable. In the last instance he introduced so that the recognition of the world in general in question. The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach criticized this as " physiological idealism ". More recently, the physiological idealism again received a boost in the work of the biologists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (see autopoiesis ), which in turn heavily influenced contemporary philosophy and sociology ( constructivism, postmodernism, systems theory ).

Mueller died a year before the appearance of the main work of Charles Darwin. The subject of the origin of species was also sometimes discussed earlier; Mueller's response to a question in this regard Haeckel featuring a then common assessment:

Publications

Besides his handbook of physiology he publications include the following work:

• For the physiology of the fetus (1824, PDF, 3.0 MB)
• For the comparative physiology of vision (1826 )
• Formation history of the genitals ( 1830), in which he described the development of the Müller- gangs
• De glandularum secernentium structura penitiori ( 1830)
• Contributions to the anatomy and natural history of amphibians ( 1832)
• Comparative anatomy of the Myxinoids (1834-1843)
• Handbook of Human Physiology, third revised edition. 2 vols. (1837-1840)
• About the finer construction and forms of pathological tumors (1838 )
• About the Compensation of physical forces on the human vocal organ (1839 )
• Systematic description of the Plagiostomen (1841 ), with Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle
• System of asteroids (1842 ), with Franz Hermann Troschel
• Horae ichthyologicae: Description and illustration of new fish, 2 T. ( 1845-1849 ), with the same
• About Synapta digitata and on the origins of snails in holothurians (1852 ).

After the death of JF Meckel (1781-1833) he edited the Archives of Anatomy and Physiology.

Student

Among his students and staff:

• Emil du Bois- Reymond
• Ernst Haeckel
• Hermann von Helmholtz
• Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle
• Albert Kölliker of
• Wilhelm Peters
• Theodor Schwann
• Rudolph Virchow
• Wilhelm Wundt.

Honors