Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Zur Argumentations- und Vermittlungsstrategie in Müllers
Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen 1
Olaf Breidbach
Abstract
Müller´s textbook of human physiology was one of the most important of its kind in the 19 th century.
Müller not only presented state of the art physiology, but additionally a new approach to physiological
experimentation. The aim of physiology was, he maintained, the most complete analysis possible of the
physico-chemical reactions that make up the animal body. In practice, he realized, such an analysis was
impossible at the time. Yet physiology should adopt just such a reductive approach, describing the various
physiological processes as constitutive of the functional morphology of organisms. For this purpose, the
nerve-muscle junction proved ideal. Following on from the 18 th century study of animal electricity, a
particular experimental set-up had become established by the early 19 th century, which made possible the
examination of reactions at the nerve-muscle junction and thus of the physiology of muscle movement and
its control. By this time, the observed reactions were seen as effected life energies or life forces and became
burdened by a theoretical overload. Experimental practices showed, however, that these vitalist notions
were irrelevant, and as a result the reaction itself became the focus of physiological studies. In the article
the strategy by which Müller enfolds his idea of a scientific physiology is reconstructed and the place of
experiment and observation in Müllerian physiology is described, outlining physiology as a new prototype
of experimental science.
Positionierungen
Johannes Müller (1801-1858) gilt als einer der großen Physiologen des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Seine Bedeutung war dabei nicht auf die Disziplin der Physiologie beschränkt. Sein Entwurf
einer experimentellen biowissenschaftlichen Forschung wurde zu Beginn des 19.
Jahrhunderts für das Konzept einer induktiv analytischen Naturwissenschaft bestimmend.
2 Seine Physiologie wurde im deutschen Sprachraum in neu gegründeten Instituten
1 Der DFG danke ich für die Förderung im Rahmen des Projektes ‚Empirie versus Spekulation’ des SFB
482: ‚Ereignis Weimar-Jena. Kultur um 1800’.
2 Lenoir, Timothy: Laboratories, medicine and public life in Germany, 1830-1849: ideological roots of the
institutional revolution. In: The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine. Hg. A. Cunningham, P. Williams. Cambridge
1992, S. 14-71; Kremer, Richard L.: Building institutes for physiology in Prussia, 1836-1846: contexts,
interests and rhetoric. In: The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine. Hg. A. Cunningham, P. Williams. Cambridge
1992, S. 72-109.
Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005): 3-30
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