RUDOLPH ALBERT VON KOLLIKER, M. D. 5H1 



years lie taught phvsiolooy, and admits that tho physical and dunn- 

 ical side of this subject Avere left somewhat in the background. His 

 microscopical course ^va^^ largely attended and was given in the 

 evening; each meeting lasted two hours. He regarded the incisures 

 of Lantermann, the funnels and spirals of Golgi, and the Ewald- 

 Kiihne networks in nerve fibers as artificial and produced by the 

 action of reagents. He supported Ranvier's view of the outgrowths 

 of nerve fibers from a nerve cell. 



That he did not do more work in naked-eye anatomy, and. in fact, 

 produced only one large work on this subject, On the Position of the 

 Internal Female Sexual Organs (1882), he explains by the fact that 

 his scientific activity fell at a time when microscopical anatomy and 

 embryology were in their infancy. Comparative anatomy he was 

 fond of, partly because it stood in such intimate relation to the Dar- 

 winian theory, a theory which he subjected to keen criticism. 



Kolliker made many imj^ortant observations in physiology. He 

 studied the action of poisons such as curare, strychnine, veratrin, 

 upas antiar, and coniuni. He was specially interested in curare, for 

 in 1856 he showed that there were poisons that, although they para- 

 h'zed intramuscular nerves, left the excitability of the muscle tissue 

 itself intact. He published his researches on curare before those of 

 Bernard were published. He also extended the study of poisons to 

 other muscular tissues, such as the heart. The emission of light by 

 Lampi/ris and Noctilucd was carefully studied. He also made some 

 exj^eriments on the electrical condition of the heart and on the sec- 

 ondary contraction resulting when a nerve of a nerve-muscle prep- 

 aration is laid on a beating heart. 



On embryology he published his great work in 1861, of which a 

 second edition appeared in 1879. His (irvnidriss, on the same sub- 

 ject, reached a second edition in 1884. 



Many jjapers were published on bone; the nuist elaboi'ate and the 

 best illustrated is " Die normale Resorption des Knochengewebes und 

 ihre Bedeutung fiir die Entstehung der typischen Knochenformen," 

 1873. In 1872 he coined the word " osteoclast " in lieu of Robin's word 

 " nweloplaque,'' and linked uj) their function with the production of 

 Howship's lacunar 



To the subject of Darwinism he contributed several papers, and he 

 gives in his Erinnerungen a broad and excellent account of the 

 doctrine of descent as it affects the cellulai- and other elements of the 

 body. 



Classifying his published papers, we find that on histology he pub- 

 lished 108, including in this number his various text-books and their 

 editions; on anatomy, 2; physiology, 16; embryolog\% 52: Dar- 

 winism, 5; comparative anatomy and zoology, 19, including his 



