August Franz Josef Karl Mayer

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August Franz Josef Karl Mayer , also Carl August Franz Joseph Mayer (born November 2, 1787 in Schwäbisch Gmünd , † November 9, 1865 in Bonn ), was a German anatomist and physiologist . He coined the term histology .

Live and act

His parents were merchants. He first attended the grammar school in Schwäbisch Gmünd. After graduating from high school , he left his home town and worked in Munich as a private tutor for the family of Count von Lerchenfeld . Mayer studied in Tübingen and received his doctorate on October 24, 1812. He was a student of the physician and chemist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer .

In 1813 he became a prosector in Bern (he was responsible for the preparation of the dissections and a direct assistant to the head anatomist) and in 1815 he was appointed professor of anatomy, pathological anatomy and physiology. In Bern he received an inquiry from the Prussian Minister Karl vom Stein zum Altenstein . In 1819 he accepted the offer for the same position at the Royal Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn . In addition to his academic work, he still worked independently in his practice, for which he was approved on February 3, 1820. In Bonn he also advocated the new building of the anatomical institute established in 1789. According to the plans of the architect Hermann Friedrich Waesemann (1813–1879), a new building for the anatomy department was created in Bonn from 1826, but was significantly revised by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . Until 1872 it was part of the Medical Faculty, today it houses the Academic Art Museum .

Anatomical theater of the Royal Friedrich Wilhelms University in Bonn with 200 seats

Mayer's pupil Johann Samuel Eduard d'Alton was an outstanding artist, who from 1818 a. a. Studied medicine and made anatomical drawings for Mayer and Moritz Weber (1795–1875).

Mayer kept the Bonn position until 1856. After his retirement, anatomy and physiology were split up, and Maximilian Johann Sigismund Schultze (1825–1874) and Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) were appointed as his successors .

When the remains of a Neanderthal man were found near Mettmann in 1856 , Mayer had the opportunity to personally inspect the find. In contrast to Hermann Schaaffhausen , who saw the remains of an Ice Age person in the remains , Mayer suspected, because of the anatomical properties of the pelvis and legs, that this person must have spent his entire life on a horse. He speculated that it could be a Russian Cossack who died in Mettmann during the Napoleonic Wars of Liberation.

In the comparative anatomy he dealt with various issues so with a variety of vertebrate - classes such as rays , dolphin , dromedary and rhino .

He also paid special attention to the organs of vision in cod and whales , for example . In France in the first third of the 19th century, animal experiments had become the standard in physiological research, for example through François Magendie and his pupil Claude Bernard . At the University of Bonn, Mayer was the first physiologist who undertook animal experiments with a clinically relevant question. He examined the effects of a unilateral or bilateral ligation of the carotid artery (or branching of the common carotid artery) on the blood flow and function of the visual organ. He showed in 1827 an animal model show that after bilateral ligation it a bilateral visual acuity was or vision loss in his experimental animals.

An important pupil of Mayer was Johannes Müller from Koblenz . In 1819 he entered the new University of Bonn as a student and in 1830 became second professor of anatomy alongside his former teacher Mayer.

Mayer was elected a member of the Leopoldina in 1819 . He died on November 9, 1865 and was buried in Bonn in the old cemetery .

Mayer's first wife was a daughter of Fothergill. She died soon after the marriage. With his second wife Marie geb. Warren v. Fitzroy was happily married for 42 years. They had three sons.

Works (selection)

  • On histology and a new division of the tissues of the human body. Bonn 1819 ( digitized version )
  • Investigations into the umbilical vesicle and the allantois in human and mammalian embryos. Bonn 1835 ( digitized version )
  • Analects for comparative anatomy . Bonn 1835 ( digitized version )
  • On the structure of the fish's brain. E. Blochmann & Sohn, Dresden 1863 ( digitized version )

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Nikolaus Rüdinger:  Mayer, Franz Joseph Karl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1885, p. 121 f.
  2. ^ Walter Bruchhauser: Health Care between Medicine and Religion The Case of Catholic Western Germany around 1800. (PDF; 169 kB) p. 187.
  3. ^ Kai Torsten Kanz: Kielmeyer Bibliography Directory of the literature by and about the natural scientist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer (1765–1844). (Sources of the History of Science, Volume 1) ISBN 978-3-928186-06-3 .
  4. ^ Sabine Zwiener: Johann Samuel Eduard d'Alton (1803-1854) life and work . Dissertation, Halle (Saale), 2004, p. 17.
  5. ^ Hans-Reinhard Koch: 2000 years Bonn ophthalmology. On the history of ophthalmology in Bonn from the Romans to the Romans. The basis of the present work is the public inaugural lecture given by Hans-Reinhard Koch on May 6, 1976 in front of the Bonn Medical Faculty, as well as an earlier publication from 1977. pp. 19-20.
  6. ^ Member entry of August Franz Josef Karl Mayer at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on November 19, 2012.
  7. ↑ According to ADB article. It could mean the physician John Fothergill (1712-1780).
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, August Franz Josef Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mayer, August Franz Josef Carl; Mayer, Franz Josef Carl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physician and anatomist
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1787
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwäbisch Gmünd
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1865
Place of death Bonn