Albrecht von Haller

Swiss physiologist (1708–1777)

Born at Bern in Switzerland, Haller studied under Hermann Boerhaave at Leiden, gaining his MD in 1727. He was later appointed professor of anatomy, botany, and medicine (1736–53) at the newly established University of Göttingen. He then retired to Bern to spend more time on his research and writing.

Between 1757 and 1766 Haller published in eight massive volumes his Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humani (Physiological Elements of the Human Body). The work described the advances in physiology made since the time of William Harvey, enriched with Haller's own experimental researches.

Before Haller, physiology followed the views of René Descartes – that bodily systems are essentially mechanical but require some vital principle to overcome their initial inertness. Haller, anticipated somewhat by Francis Glisson, broke radically with this tradition. When stimulated, muscles contract; such ‘irritability’, according to Haller, is inherent in the fiber and not caused by external factors.

The implications of this work were not immediately apparent to Haller. It was left to the philosophers of the Enlightenment to hammer home the conclusion that if such an inherent force resided in muscles then there no longer remained a need for the assumption of vital principles to imbue them with activity.

Haller also made important contributions to embryology and was a noted botanist, publishing a major work on the Swiss flora. However, his attempt to construct an alternative classification scheme to that of Linnaeus, based on fruits rather than sexual organs, received little support despite being a more logical system.

The Swiss physician Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777) conducted experiments in organic sensibility and irritability that are landmarks in the development of physiology.

Albrecht von Haller was born in Bern on Oct. 16, 1708. He lacked the strength to participate in the more ordinary pursuits of childhood and, under the guidance of a tutor, turned to scholarly activities. Among other things, he studied languages and wrote poetry. At 15 he entered the University of Tübingen to study medicine; he moved to the University of Leiden in 1725 and received a doctorate there in 1727.

For the next 2 years Haller studied in London and Paris and at the University of Basel. At Basel he became interested in botany, and studies started there culminated in the publication of a flora of Switzerland in 1742, Enumeratio methodica stirpium Helveticarum. More immediately, his botanical field studies in the Alps inspired him to write Die Alpen, his best-known poem, which was published in his Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichte in 1732. This poem introduced the concept of mountain beauty to the literary world. In 1729 he began medical practice in his native Bern. In 1736 he was appointed professor of anatomy, surgery, and botany at the newly founded University of Göttingen, where he stayed until 1753.

At Göttingen, Haller's interest turned to physiology, and in 1747 he authored the first textbook of physiology, Primae lineae physiologiae. His most important work was on the irritability and sensibility of organs. Although both concepts predated Haller, he was the first to demonstrate experimentally that sensibility (the ability to produce sensation) existed only in organs supplied with nerves, while irritability (a reaction to stimuli) was a property of the organ or tissue. His concept of irritability was particularly important in efforts to understand muscle physiology. His ideas were published in 1753 in De partibus corporis humani sensibilibus et irritabilibus.

In 1753 Haller returned to Bern. He took a position with the Swiss state service and then, from 1758 until 1764, was resident manager of the Bernese saltworks. His detailed, eight-volume compendium of information on physiology, Elementa physiologiae corporis humani, appeared between 1759 and 1766.

On Dec. 12, 1777, Haller died. His influence as a teacher and his publications, numbering in the thousands, guided development in physiology for a century. His research method laid the lasting foundations of experimental physiology.

Further Reading

There are several biographical sketches of Haller. These vary in their usefulness, but a good introduction is the chapter on Haller in Henry Sigerist, The Great Doctors (trans. 1933). Arturo Castiglioni, A History of Medicine (trans. 1941; rev. ed. 1947), and Ralph Hermon Major, A History of Medicine (vol. 2, 1954), discuss Haller and his work and are recommended for historical background.

Additional Sources

Haller, Albrecht von, The natural philosophy of Albrecht von Haller, New York:Arno Press, 1981.

German architect. A pupil of David Gilly, he was one of the first (with T. Allason and C. R. Cockerell) to discover the entasis on Greek columns. With Foster, Jakob Linckh (1786–1841), and Cockerell he discovered the Aegina marbles (1811), and helped to survey the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. He submitted a design for the Walhalla, near Regensburg (1814–15), consisting of a massive series of battered platforms, a propylaeum with three pylon-towers, and a Greek Revival temple on top, obviously inspired by F. Gilly's monument to Frederick the Great (1797). His unrealized proposals for the Munich Glyptothek (Sculpture Gallery—1814) combined Greek and Egyptian elements. Leo von Klenze built both projects to his own designs, retaining Haller's platform idea at Walhalla.

Bibliography

• Colvin (1995)
• Watkin & Mellinghoff (1987)

The full bibliography for this book is available to download as a pdf file.
Download the bibliography for A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (PDF: 1.2MB)

Haller, Albrecht von (Berne, 1708-77, Berne), was primarily a physician but was also in his early years a poet of note. Haller studied medicine at Tübingen and Leyden. In 1728 he visited the Alps, subsequently writing his didactic and satirical poem Die Alpen, which was the most important item in Versuch schweizerischer Gedichte (1732). This journey also laid the foundation of his botanical interests. Having practised as a physician in Berne since 1729, he was appointed in 1736 to the new Hanoverian university of Göttingen as professor of anatomy, botany, and surgery. This promotion coincided with the death of his young wife, whom he commemorated in the Trauerode, beim Absterben seiner geliebten Mariane. Between his late twenties and his sixties Haller confined himself to scientific publications, written for the most part in Latin and dealing with anatomy, physiology, and botany. In 1753 he resigned on grounds of ill health and returned to Berne, where he took a minor post in the city administration, finally retiring in 1773. Haller was regarded in 18th-c. Germany as the foremost medical authority. He founded the Sozietät der Wissenschaften at Göttingen and was its president until his death. Towards the end of his working life he wrote three novels of a politico-didactic character, Usong (1771), Alfred (1773), and Fabius und Cato (1774). A selection with postscript by A. Elschenbroich, Die Alpen und andere Gedichte, appeared in 1965.

Haller, Albrecht Von (1708–1777), Swiss physician, anatomist, and poet. Haller was born in Bern, Switzerland, the youngest son of a lawyer. He began his medical studies in Tübingen in 1724, then moved to Leiden to continue his training under the famed Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738). After receiving his degree in 1727, Haller traveled in England, where he was enormously impressed with English science and literature; Paris, which he left in haste when pursued by authorities for dissecting cadavers in his rooms; and Basel, where he sojourned for two years, studying mathematics with the renowned Johann Bernoulli I (1667–1748) and teaching anatomy. Haller returned to Bern to practice medicine, but he was unsuccessful in obtaining an academic position and served as a librarian in the state library. During these early years Haller journeyed frequently through the Alps, collecting botanical specimens that led later to several publications on Swiss botany. Another result was Haller's most well-known poem, "Die Alpen"(1728), which was published in 1732 in Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichte, a collection of his poems that went through several editions.

When the University of Göttingen opened its doors in 1736, Haller was selected as professor of anatomy, surgery, and medicine. He remained at Göttingen for seventeen years, during which he published his most significant work in physiology, proposing the concept of muscular "irritability," in 1753. He developed one of the leading medical centers of Europe in Göttingen, was first president of its scientific society, and served as editor of an academic journal, in which he published some nine thousand book reviews.

One of Haller's greatest ambitions was to be elected to the ruling governing council (the "small council") in Bern, which would have catapulted him into the aristocracy. In 1753 he abruptly resigned his post in Göttingen to accept a minor administrative position in Bern. Named director of the saltworks in Roche five years later, Haller busied himself with public service but never advanced any further up the political scale.

Haller's scientific work continued to advance, however, particularly through his observations on chick development. These led in 1758 to his conversion to the theory of preexistence of germs (the idea that God had created all future organisms at once). Haller had previously supported the opposing theory of epigenesis (the theory of gradual development at each instance of reproduction). Over the next few years Haller published his masterful eight-volume Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (1757–1766; Elements of the physiology of the human body), which furthered his program of uniting anatomy and physiology under anatomia animata (living anatomy).

Haller has been characterized as "the last universal scholar" of the Enlightenment. As a scientist he contributed to medicine, physiology, anatomy, embryology, and botany. He wrote articles for over thirty academic journals and published poetry, three political novels, and works on political theory and religious apologetics. Never one to shy away from controversy, he was involved in numerous disputes in science and philosophy. Throughout his life Haller held fast to a Newtonian vision of nature deeply rooted in morality and religion and rejected the more radical facets of Enlightenment thought.

Bibliography

Primary Source

Haller, Albrecht von. The Natural Philosophy of Albrecht von Haller. Edited by Shirley A. Roe. New York, 1981. Collection of primary and secondary sources.

Secondary Sources

Toellner, Richard. Albrecht von Haller: Über die Einheit im Denken des letzten Universalgelehrten. Sudhoffs Archive Beihefte, no. 10. Wiesbaden, 1971.

Wiswall, Dorothy Roller. A Comparison of Selected Poetic and Scientific Works of Albrecht von Haller. Bern, 1981.

—SHIRLEY A. ROE

Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller
Born	October 16, 1708 Berne
Died	December 12, 1777
Nationality	Swiss
Fields	anatomist physiologist naturalist

Albrecht von Haller (October 16, 1708–December 12, 1777) was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Medicine 3 Later life 4 Importance for Homoeopathy 5 External links 6 References

Early life

He was born of an old Swiss family at Berne. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind. At the age of four, it is said, he used to read and expound the Bible to his father’s servants; before he was ten he had sketched a Chaldee grammar, prepared a Greek and a Hebrew vocabulary, compiled a collection of two thousand biographies of famous men and women on the model of the great works of Bayle and Moréri, and written in Latin verse a satire on his tutor, who had warned him against a too great excursiveness. When still hardly fifteen he was already the author of numerous metrical translations from Ovid, Horace and Virgil, as well as of original lyrics, dramas, and an epic of four thousand lines on the origin of the Swiss confederations, writings which he is said on one occasion to have rescued from a fire at the risk of his life, only, however, to burn them a little later (1729) with his own hand.

Medicine

Illustration from C.J. Rollinus in Haller's book Icones anatomicae from 1756

Haller's attention had been directed to the profession of medicine while he was residing in the house of a physician at Biel after his father's death in 1721. While still a sickly and excessively shy youth, he went in his sixteenth year to the university of Tübingen (December 1723), where he studied under Elias Rudolph Camerarius Jr. and Johann Duvernoy. Dissatisfied with his progress, he in 1725 exchanged Tübingen for Leiden, where Boerhaave was in the zenith of his fame, and where Albinus had already begun to lecture in anatomy. At that university he graduated in May 1727, undertaking successfully in his thesis to prove that the so-called salivary duct, claimed as a recent discovery by Georg Daniel Coschwitz (1679-1729), was nothing more than a blood-vessel.

Haller then visited London, making the acquaintance of Sir Hans Sloane, William Cheselden, John Pringle, James Douglas and other scientific men; next, after a short stay in Oxford, he visited Paris, where he studied under Henri François Le Dran and Jacob Winslow; and in 1728 he proceeded to Basel, where he devoted himself to the study of higher mathematics under John Bernoulli. It was during his stay there also that his interest in botany was awakened; and, in the course of a tour (July/August, 1728), through Savoy, Baden and several of the cantons of Switzerland, he began a collection of plants which was afterwards the basis of his great work on the flora of Switzerland. From a literary point of view the main result of this, the first of his many journeys through the Alps, was his poem entitled Die Alpen, which was finished in March 1729, and appeared in the first edition (1732) of his Gedichte. This poem of 490 hexameters is historically important as one of the earliest signs of the awakening appreciation of the mountains, though it is chiefly designed to contrast the simple and idyllic life of the inhabitants of the Alps with the corrupt and decadent existence of the dwellers in the plains.

In 1729 he returned to Berne and began to practise as a physician; his best energies, however, were devoted to the botanical and anatomical researches which rapidly gave him a European reputation, and procured for him from George II in 1736 a call to the chair of medicine, anatomy, botany and surgery in the newly founded University of Göttingen. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1743, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1747, and was ennobled in 1749.

The quantity of work achieved by Haller in the seventeen years during which he occupied his Göttingen professorship was immense. Apart from the ordinary work of his classes, which entailed the task of newly organizing a botanical garden (the Alte Botanische Garten der Universität Göttingen), an anatomical theatre and museum, an obstetrical school, and similar institutions, he carried on without interruption those original investigations in botany and physiology, the results of which are preserved in the numerous works associated with his name; he continued also to persevere in his youthful habit of poetical composition, while at the same time he conducted a monthly journal (the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen), to which he is said to have contributed twelve thousand articles relating to almost every branch of human knowledge. He also warmly interested himself in most of the religious questions, both ephemeral and permanent, of his day; and the erection of the Reformed church in Göttingen was mainly due to his unwearied energy.

Notwithstanding all this variety of absorbing interests he never felt at home in Göttingen; his untravelled heart kept ever turning towards his native Berne (where he had been elected a member of the great council in 1745), and in 1753 he resolved to resign his chair and return to Switzerland.

Later life

The twenty-one years of his life which followed were largely occupied in the discharge of his duties in the minor political post of a Rathausmann which he had obtained by lot, and in the preparation of his Bibliotheca medica, the botanical, surgical and anatomical parts of which he lived to complete; but he also found time to write the three philosophical romances Usong (1771), Alfred (1773) and Fabius and Cato (1774),in which his views as to the respective merits of despotism, of limited monarchy and of aristocratic republican government are fully set forth.

About 1773 the state of his health meant he withdrew from public business. He supported his failing strength by means of opium, on the use of which he communicated a paper to the Proceedings of the Göttingen Royal Society in 1776; the excessive use of the drug is believed, however, to have hastened his death.

Haller, who had been three times married, left eight children, the eldest of whom, Gottlieb Emanuel, attained to some distinction as a botanist and as a writer on Swiss historical bibliography (1785-1788, 7 vols).

See also:

• History of anatomy in the 17th and 18th centuries

Importance for Homoeopathy

Albrecht von Haller is quoted in the footnote to paragraph 108 in the Organon of Medicine, the principal philosophical work by the founder of Homoeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann. In this paragraph, Hahnemann describes how the curative powers of individual medicines can only be ascertained through accurate observation of their specific effects on healthy persons:

"Not one single physician, as far as I know, during the previous two thousand five hundred years, thought of this so natural, so absolutely necessary and only genuine mode of testing medicines for their pure and peculiar effects in deranging the health of man, in order to learn what morbid state each medicine is capable of curing, except the great and immortal Albrecht von Haller. He alone, besides myself, saw the necessity of this (vide the Preface to the Pharmacopoeia Helvet., Basil, 1771, fol., p. 12); Nempe primum in corpore sano medela tentanda est, sine peregrina ulla miscela; odoreque et sapore ejus exploratis, exigua illiu dosis ingerenda et ad ommes, quae inde contingunt, affectiones, quis pulsus, qui calor, quae respiratia, quaenam excretiones, attendum. Inde ad ductum phaenomenorum, in sano obviorum, transeas ad experimenta in corpore aegroro," etc. But no one, not a single physician, attended to or followed up this invaluable hint."

The quotation from von Haller may be translated from the Latin as follows: "Of course, firstly the remedy must be proved on a healthy body, without being mixed with anything foreign; and when its odour and flavour have been ascertained, a tiny dose of it should be given and attention paid to all the changes of state that take place, what the pulse is, what heat there is, what sort of breathing and what exertions there are. Then in relation to the form of the phenomena in a healthy person from those exposed to it, you should move on to trials on a sick body..."

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Albrecht von Haller

• The Haller research group
• Biography and information on celebrations in 2008
• Biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Haller and China
• Haller’s novels online
• Internet Archive Digitised Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (1762)

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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