Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/360

344 ear were also made in Ludwig's laboratory. In fact, by the establishment of the histological department of his institute, he exercised a marked influence on the development of minute anatomy.

If Ludwig's experimental methods were characterized from the beginning by their extraordinary precision, this quality was simply the result of the serious cast of his whole character. At whatever time one might happen to enter his laboratory, one always received the impression that it had just been put in order, and that every article was in its proper place.

The numerous investigations which Ludwig caused to be made on the most important parts of the body of course furthered the advance of medical science. The results of his researches benefited theoretical medicine, and his fully developed methods were of great advantage in experimental pathology and in clinical observations. Among Ludwig's pupils were a large number of eminent clinicians. Ludwig himself, however, always attached great importance to his relations to medicine and the practical significance of physiology. "Guiding the course of human life according to the dictates of human wisdom" is what in his great work on physiology he gives as his conception of the true aim of a physician, and later he several times expressed the same idea in somewhat different words.

It would be extremely interesting to follow more closely the influences that caused Ludwig to take up the physical side of physiology. This is now no easy matter to determine, and even inquiries that I have made among his surviving friends and pupils have given me no definite opinion. An accurate manner of thinking and great mental independence were always peculiar to Ludwig, and they were perhaps the qualities that caused him to turn aside from all beaten paths. As a student, this feeling of independence brought him into conflict with the laws of discipline in his university, and resulted in a temporary suspension of his studies there. On his return to Marburg he seems to have finally decided on making physiology his profession, and it was then that he entered Bunsen's laboratory. In the analyses that were undertaken there he probably had his first opportunity of becoming familiar with the more accurate physical methods. There he also had intercourse with other young physicists, among whom was Reiset. Bunsen's strict training must, indeed, have been a strong contrast to the unsystematic routine of the Bamberg surgeon with whom Ludwig had spent his time of suspension. From 1842 (the year of the inaugural thesis) onward he worked on the problems of physical physiology with his friends and pupils.