Rudolf Albert von Kölliker

KÖLLIKER, Rudolf Albert (1817–1905), one of the founders of modern histology and microscopic anatomy. In 1842, he was a prosector under his teacher Henle; in 1844, he became a professor of physiology and comparative anatomy in Zurich; from 1847 to 1902, he was a professor of anatomy in Würzburg. The main activity of Kölliker is associated with the period of histology after Schwann, when the concept of the cell was being established and the investigation of all tissues and organs was taking place from the point of view of cell theory. Kölliker was one of the first to accept Schwann's doctrine and proved that the egg is a cell; he was also the first to describe the partial cleavage of eggs. His many years of research activity were extremely intense (267 works) and continued until his very death. There is not a single organ or a single tissue that was not touched upon by his works, the results of which, in most cases, firmly entered scientific usage. They were set forth in a series of editions of the classic manual "Handbuch der Gewebelehre" (1st ed., Leipzig, 1852; 6th ed., Vol. I-II, Leipzig, 1889–96), which, due to the mass of detailed information and the richness of historical material, still remains indispensable. He also wrote manuals on embryology ("Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen und der höheren Tiere", 1st ed., Leipzig, 1861; 2nd ed., Vol. I-II, Leipzig, 1876–79, and the abridged "Grundriss", 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1884). In 1849, Kölliker, together with K. Siebold (K. Th. E. Siebold), founded the "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie," which had enormous significance for the development of comparative histology. In the last period of his life, Kölliker worked almost exclusively on the structure of the nervous system using the Golgi method in the spirit of the neuron theory, of which he was a defender. Among his works of a theoretical nature, one should mention an article on Darwin's theory (1864) and a special work on evolutionary theory (1872). In these works, Kölliker relates negatively to the idea of natural selection, putting forward instead an idealistic "theory of development under the influence of internal causes," or "theory of heterogeneous development." In Kölliker's opinion, at the basis of the emergence of the entire organic world, as well as nature in general, "lie laws that in a completely definite way impel it toward ever higher development." The latter occurs in leaps, which, according to Kölliker, can lead even to the sudden emergence of new genera, families, orders, etc. (e.g., amphibians from fish, reptiles from amphibians, etc.).