Rudolph Albert von Kölliker

Rudolph Albert von Kölliker born the July 6th 1817 with Zurich and dead the November 2nd 1905 with Würzburg was a anatomist, biologist and physiologist Suisse.

It began its studies with Zurich, and it entered there to the university in 1836. At the end of two years, however, it went to the Université of Bonn, and later to that of Berlin where it became the pupil of Johannes Peter Müller and of Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle. It obtained a graduat in philosophy in Zurich in 1841, and medicine with Heidelberg in 1842.

Its first academic employment was that of “prosector” (assisting in load of the dissections of anatomy) at Henle; but this employment was of short duration because, in 1844, the university of its birthplace recalled it to occupy there the extraordinary pulpit of professor of physiology and comparative anatomy. It did not remain there a long time either: in 1847 the university of Wurzbourg, attracted by its growing reputation, offered to him the post of professor of physiology and microscopic anatomy and comparative. It accepted the offer and remained in Würzburg for good, refusing all the offers which proposed to him to leave the peaceful academic life of the Bavarian city where it finished its life.

He studies particularly the jellyfish S and other similar organizations. He leads, to obtain raw material, zoological forwardings in the Mediterranean and on the coasts of Scotland. In the beginning, it was interested especially in the invertebrates, but well quickly it passed to the vertebrate ones. For the embryos of Mammalian S, it was one of the first to introduce microscopic techniques, including fixing, cutting, coloring.

But its principal contributions were in the field of the Histologie rather than of the Zoologie and the Embryologie. On the steps of Henle, it proved for example the difference between the smooth muscles and striated.

List its contributions in histology (not-exhaustive)

Muscle smooth and striated
Skin
Os
Tooth S
Blood-vessel
Internal organ S

He wrote a large handbook of microscopic anatomy (1850).

Its principal contribution relates to however the Nervous system. In 1845, for example, whereas it was still in Zurich, it succeeds in showing the bond between nervous fibers and the neurons

It is him which had the idea to distinguish physiology from the anatomy. It is him also which proves that the chromosomes are implied in heredity, that the spermatozoa are cells. It introduces the term of cytoplasm to indicate expanded material external with the core.

All its services were worth honors to him. Previously known simply like Kolliker , the title von was added to its name. He became member of learned societies of various countries; in England, which he visited more once, and where he was famous, the Royal Society did it foreign member in 1860, and in 1897 the most sign of regard granted to him, the Médaille Copley. It also receives the Médaille linnéenne in 1902.

List partial of the publications

Handbuch der Gewebelehre (1852)
Über die Darwin' sche Schöpfungstheorie (1864)
Entwicklungsgeschichte of Menschen und DER höhren Thiere /Akademische Vorträge von Albert Kölliker. 2. , ganz umgearb. Aufl. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1879 (1. Aufl. 1861)
Grundriß der Entwicklungsgeschichte of Menschen und DER höheren Tiere (1880, 2. Aufl. 1884)
Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben . Leipzig: Engelmann, 1899

Random links: