RUDOLPH ALBERT VOX KOLLIKER. M. D.," 



Professor of (uiatonn/ in Ihc JJnivcrslty of Wiirzhiir;/. 



By William Stirling, 



Professor of phjisioJoiiji and Iiistologi/, and dean of medical school. University of 

 Manchester, England. 



The death of Professor Kolliker was announced in the British 

 INIedical Journal of November 11. The venerable scientist died on 

 November 3, of pneumonia, after an illness of thirty-six hours. 



The name of Kolliker has been familiar to all histologists and 

 anatomists for nearly half a century, for there is scarcely any depart- 

 ment of histology to which he did not contribute largely by \\vi 

 original work. The whole animal kingdom was laid under contribu- 

 tion, and his contributions dealt both with the structures as they 

 appear in adults and with tissues and organs in their development. 



Born at Zurich in 1817, just four years after the birth of Claude 

 Bernard, Kolliker began his studies in the university of his native 

 town in 1836. In 1839 he proceeded to Bonn, and later in the same 

 year to Berlin, where he became a pupil of Johannes Miiller, who 

 exercised a profound influence on the .young and ardent student. 

 INIiiller's wide survey of physiology led Kolliker to take the same 

 broad view of histology. He took the degree of doctor of philosoi^hy 

 at Zurich in 1841, and because that university insisted on a viva voce 

 examination when he presented a dissertation for a medical degree, 

 he elected to take his degree in Heidelberg in 1842, presenting on the 

 occasion a thesis on the development of Ghironomus and Donacia. 



Schleiden, of Jena, published his work on vegetable cells in 1838, 

 and Schwann his cell theory in 1839. In the memoir entitled '' Mi- 

 croscopical researches into the accordance in the structure and growth 

 of animals and plants," the cell theory was formulated. Kc'illiker was 

 thus fortuiuite in finding a field of research which lie cultivated with 

 such marvelous success that up to 1899, when he published Erinner- 

 ungen aus meinen Leben, wdien he was over 80 years of age, the total 

 number of his papers is given as 245, most of them on liistological 



o Reprinted by penuission, from the British Medical Journal, London, No. 

 ■i:'A2, November IS, 1905. 



557 



