THEODORE LUDWIG WILHELM VON BISCHOFF. 459 



Heidelberg, receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1829, and 

 that of Doctor of Medicine in 1832. He obtained an appointment as 

 assistant in midwifery at Berlin. Here he met with Johannes Miiller 

 and Ehrenberg, under whom he continued his studies in anatomy and 

 physiology. From 1835 to 18i3 he delivered lectures on comparative 

 patliological anatomy at Heidelberg, and from IS-IS to 1855 was Pro- 

 fessor of Physiology and Anatomy at Giessen, where he established a 

 Museum of Anatomy and a Physiological Institute. In 1854, having 

 declined offers from several German universities, he accepted the chair 

 of Human Anatomy and Physiology at Munich, succeeding the anato- 

 mist Foerg. 



In 1850, he appeared with Liebig at the famous trial of Count 

 Giirlitz, who was accused of wife-murder, and demonstrated the im- 

 possibility of spontaneous combustion. His views on this subject may 

 be found in his paper, " Ueber die Selbstverbrennung," in the Annales 

 de la Medecine Legale, 1850. 



Bischoff belonged to the older school of German embryologists, 

 who under the lead of Von Baer laid the foundations of modern mor- 

 phology. He [)aid considerable attention to the anatomy of the Quad- 

 rumana, and his last papers were devoted to the comparative study of 

 the brain of monkeys. His more important memoirs, however, are his 

 investigations on the development of Mammalia, published between 

 1842 and 1852. The monographs he published on the Dog, the 

 Guinea-Pig, the Rabbit, and the Deer have remained the basis of all 

 the more recent studies on the development of the higher mammals. 



BischofF was elected Foreign Honorary Member of this Academy, 

 November 13, 1849, and his letter acknowledging his election, dated 

 at Giessen, May 20, 1850, is worthy of being preserved, as showing 

 his large and liberal spirit : — 



" This unexpected honor, paid me from a land so distant from my 

 native country, possesses for me a high worth, as an evidence of the 

 acknowledgment of my scientific labors and exertions. It encourages 

 me to hope that these labors possess a generally useful character, and 

 that they have acquired the approbation of the patrons of science in 

 your society. This marked honor is flattering to me also, inasmuch as 

 it furnishes fresh evidence that the United States, so long the asylum 

 of my poor and oppressed countrymen, forced to leave their native 

 Germany, will also kindly receive German science, fostering and ad- 

 vancing it upon a more fruitful ground than can be found in the much 

 overcrowded fatherland." 



