Helmholtz, Hermann von 1821-94
German physiologist and physicist

Born in Potsdam, Brandenburg, he was successively Professor of Physiology at the universities of K�nigsberg (1849), Bonn (1855), and Heidelberg (1858). In 1871 he became Professor of Physics in Berlin. He was equally distinguished in physiology, mathematics, and experimental and mathematical physics. His physiological works are principally connected with the eye, the ear, and the nervous system, with his work on vision regarded as fundamental to modern visual science. In 1850 he invented an ophthalmoscope independently of Charles Babbage. He is also important for his analysis of the spectrum, his explanation of vowel sounds, his papers on the conservation of energy with reference to muscular action, his paper on Conservation of Energy (1847), his two memoirs in Crelle's Journal, on vortex motion in fluids, and on the vibrations of air in open pipes, and for researches into the development of electric current within a galvanic battery. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society and in 1873 was awarded the Society's Copley Medal.

Bibliography: Leo Koenigsberger, Hermann Von Helmholtz (1906)