TINS -January 1983 Hermann Helmholtz and origins of sensory physiology

The role of great men, according to the historian Burckhardt, is to pry loose the collective thinking from empty chatter and repetition of outmoded viewpoints. Medical science in central Europe in the middle of the last century was ready for great men. For while the Enlightenment and the Napoleonic era had cleared centuries of political and intellectual cobwebs, restorative forces had made significant reversals in this progressive movement. This applied particularly to Germany, where they were aided by the somewhat reactionary tone associated with the Romantic movement. The scientific impulse is, of course, irrepressible but the form it takes will be influenced by the spirit of the times. Interestingly, that spirit was not hostile to the idea of evolution, but one was quick to see in it an expression of the special forces associated with living things. Vitalism was the prevailing viewpoint in biology; it pervaded the writings of Goethe and even those of the leading physiologists of the day, Jan Purkinje and Johannes MiJller. To take a stance against it would have required an anti-authoritarian attitude not a usual characteristic of members of the scientific establishment. As it happens, it sufficed and perhaps was more effective to have an excellent mind, be hard-working, scrupulous and consistent. With these attributes, one individual almost single-handedly turned the direction of enquiry into sensory phenomena in Germany through 180 degrees. He was Hermann Helmholtz. His origin, though not particularly distinguished, was auspicious 6. The son of a high-school teacher, who was a veteran of the Napoleonic wars and a family friend of the patriotic philosopher Fichte, Helmholtz was born in 1821 in the little town of Potsdam, residence of the Prussian kings, not far from Berlin. Though poor, the Helmholtz family had enough connection to arrange a free University education for their eldest son by gaining his acceptance in the army medical training program associated with Berlin University, where his course work followed the regular medical curriculum. Helmholtz himself would have 5