1898] ' 133 



OBITUAEIES 



NICOLAUS KLEINENBERG 



BoEN 1S42. Died November 11, 1897. 



If there has been any reference to the deatli of this accomplished 

 morphologist in any Kiigiisli scientific journal, it has escaped my 

 notice at least. And yet l*rofessor Kleinenberg was committed to 

 the ground in Naples in the early days of last November, having 

 succumbed to angina pectoris at the age of fifty-two. 



His name deserves an honoured place in the memories of British 

 morphologists, if only in consideration of the fact that he was, in his 

 time, a close friend of Balfour. Moreover, he was among those who 

 had realised that Huxley could have been a great man, even if 

 Darwin had not existed. 



My excuses for attempting an appreciation of Kleinenberg are, 

 firstly, that no one else appears to have done so in this country, and 

 secondly, that some years ago I had the privilege and pleasure of 

 being the recipient of kindness and attention from him. 



Kleinenberg's published works were not numerous, but they were 

 choice. Perhaps their essential characteristic may be looked for in 

 their notable capacity for opening new and important vistas to the 

 morphologist. 



It is a sad, but undeniable, fact tliat in the estimation of natural- 

 ists in general the " mere morphologist " does not occupy a very 

 high place. Nevertheless, there is not much to choose between a 

 zoologist without morphological knowledge and a morphologist 

 without zoological knowledge. That both species occur is lament- 

 ably more than probable. 



Kleinenberg was a naturalist who devoted himself largely to 

 morphology. His work on Hydra (1872) nay certainly be said to 

 rank already as a classic, and its worth as an example of high 

 morphological research to be cited for the emulation of later 

 investigators is not diminished by the fact that his neuro- 

 muscular theory has been superseded, firstly, through the dis- 

 coveries inaugurated by Golgi, and, secondly, through the dis- 

 covery of independent nervous elements in Hydra {cf. Camillo 

 Schneider, "Histologic von Hydra, etc." Arcliiv. fur mikr. Anat., 

 vol. XXXV., 1890). 



With what may be described as fatal consistency, Kleinenberg 

 appears to have remained faithful to his famous neuro-muscular 

 theory to the end. In his work on the development of Lmiibricus 

 trai^ezoidcs (1879) the remarkable twinning of the embryo will be 

 remembered by all, while his account of the separate origin of the 

 supraoesophageal ganglion and the ventral ganglionic chain is worthy 

 of particular note. His more recent magnum opus on Zojjadorhy7ichus 

 (1886) is a veritable mine of suggestive morphological speculation of 

 first-rate importance. His discovery of the circular nerve below the 



