Schiff

Schiff Moritz (Moritz Schiff, 1823-1896), outstanding physiologist. He graduated from the university in Göttingen in 1844; then he headed the ornithological department of the zoological museum in Frankfurt am Main. In 1854 he received a professorship in comparative anatomy in Bern, in 1863 he moved as a professor of physiology to Florence, and from 1876 he settled in Geneva, taking the chair of physiology. In scientific terms, Schiff was a follower of the famous school of Johannes Müller and Du Bois-Reymond in Germany and Magendie in France. He lived and worked at the same time as Claude Bernard, Munk, Ludwig, Helmholtz, and others. His research covered various problems of physiology: he studied the glycogenic function of the liver, the effect of the spleen on processes in the duodenum, the phenomena of excitation in nerves and muscles, and devoted considerable attention to the physiology of the nervous system. The functions of the vagus nerve, the centers of the cerebral cortex, and questions of nervous trophics also attracted his attention. Schiff can be considered one of the precursors of the doctrine of nervous trophics, as he was the first to conduct experimental studies on changes in the gastric mucosa with operative injury to certain parts of the brain, on trophic disorders of the eyeball with injury to the trigeminal nerve, and so on. Schiff based his conclusions on a large number of experiments, often original. He repeatedly obtained the results, setting up control experiments for this purpose. He did not limit himself to purely physiological research, but resorted to the help of chemistry, histology, and other sciences. The works of Schiff were published by his student, Professor A. A. Gertsen, in several volumes, which have now become bibliographically rare. In 1848 Schiff participated in the revolutionary movement as a doctor of the insurgents in Frankfurt am Main. After the defeat of the Baden uprising, he was forced to emigrate first to Switzerland and then to Italy. He was the only professor who participated in the demonstration on May 1, 1892, in Geneva. Schiff was a friend of Lassalle. He died in Geneva.