Ludwig

Ludwig Karl (Carl Ludwig, 1816-95), one of the outstanding physiologists of the 19th century; he studied medicine in Erlangen and Marburg, completing his course in 1839; in 1841 he was appointed prosector of anatomy in Marburg, in 1842 became associate professor of physiology, and in 1846 occupied the chair of comparative anatomy there. From 1849 to 1855 he was professor of anatomy and physiology in Zurich, from 1855 to 1865 professor of physiology and zoology at the Vienna military medical academy, and from 1865 until the end of his life professor of physiology in Leipzig. Together with his friends Helmholtz, Du Bois-Reymond, and Brücke, L. was in the first rank of fighters against the speculative direction in physiology and for the introduction of precise research methods into it. At the same time, he was a bright supporter of mechanical worldview. Working mainly in the field of physiology of plant processes, Ludwig, already in his associate professor's dissertation, gave the famous and still current physical theory of urine secretion. In his works on hemodynamics, he for the first time brilliantly applied the graphical method (float manometer, see Kymography). From L.'s laboratory came the Sechenov pump for obtaining gases from blood, etc. The most skilled vivisector of his time, L. gave classic studies on the innervation of the heart and blood vessels, salivation and its innervation, gas exchange of organs in situ and excised from the body, movements of the intestine, absorption of food substances, etc. In 1852-56 his famous two-volume textbook of Physiology appeared (Leipzig - Heidelberg; 2nd ed. - Kiev, 1861-64), in which for the first time the physico-chemical point of view on life processes was strictly and systematically presented. A most talented teacher, Ludwig became the head of the vast international school of physiologists, among whom the Russians occupied perhaps the first place after the Germans, so that, according to I. M. Sechenov, 'Ludwig should be considered the founder of physiology in Russia in the second half of the 19th century.' In his laboratory worked: Sechenov, Einbrodt, Schäfer, Zion, Shchelkov, Kovalevsky, Alex. Schmidt, I. M. Dogel, I. P. Pavlov, and others. For 11 years L. published collections of works from the Leipzig laboratory ('Arbeiten aus der physiologischen Anstalt zu Leipzig', 1867-77).