Albrecht von Haller

Albrecht von Haller (16 October 1708 – 12 December 1777) was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet. He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind. At the age of four, it is said, he used to read and expound the Bible to his father’s servants; before he was ten he had sketched a Chaldee grammar, prepared a Greek and a Hebrew vocabulary, compiled a collection of two thousand biographies of famous men and women on the model of the great works of Bayle and Moréri, and written in Latin verse a satire on his tutor, who had warned him against a too great excursiveness. When still hardly fifteen he was already the author of numerous metrical translations from Ovid, Horace and Virgil, as well as of original lyrics, dramas, and an epic of four thousand lines on the origin of the Swiss confederations, writings which he is said on one occasion to have rescued from a fire at the risk of his life, only, however, to burn them a little later (1729) with his own hand.

Career

Two years after the death of his father, an able lawyer, he went, in 1723, to the University of Tübingen, where he became the pupil of the anatomist Duvernoy. In 1725 he removed to Leyden, where he obtained the degree of M.D. in 1727. He then visited London, whence he proceeded to Oxford and afterward to Paris, where for six months he studied anatomy and botany; later he became the pupil of Johann Bernoulli, the celebrated mathematician, at Basel. He returned in his twenty-second year to his native city and commenced practice as a physician. The professor of anatomy, Meig, having fallen ill, Haller undertook the duties of his class; he likewise devoted much of his time about this period to the botany of the Alps and also published a descriptive poem, Die Alpen. In 1735 he was appointed physician to the hospital, and shortly afterward principal librarian and curator of the cabinet of medals; but in 1736 he left Bern to become professor of medicine, anatomy, botany, and surgery in the new university at Göttingen. For the next 18 years he devoted himself wholly to teaching and to original research. He took an active part in the formation of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Göttingen, and the memoirs of the society contain many of his papers. During the period from 1736 to 1753 he published 86 works on medical subjects. He was appointed physician to the King of England in 1739. In 1753 he returned to Bern. Among his most important writings are his Elementa Physiologæ Corporis Humani (1757–66)—by far the most important of his works—and his four Bibliothecæ, or critical catalogues of works on botany, surgery, anatomy, and medicine. Haller's eminence as a man of science was duly recognized, in his own lifetime. He was ennobled by the Emperor of Germany in 1748, and the universities of Oxford and Utrecht in vain endeavored to obtain him as their professor. His name is especially connected with the doctrine of muscular irritability. (See Muscle.) While his name is indelibly recorded in the annals of science, it should also be remembered that by his work as a poet Haller greatly contributed to the movement which towards the end of the eighteenth century brought new life to German poetry. Others of his works were: Icones Anatomicæ (1743–50); Opuscula Pathologica (1755); Opuscula Botanica (1749). For his Life, consult Frey (Leipzig, 1879).

The quantity of work achieved by Haller in the seventeen years during which he occupied his Göttingen professorship was immense. He took on the task of newly organizing a botanical garden (the Alte Botanische Garten der Universität Göttingen), an anatomical theatre and museum, an obstetrical school, and similar institutions. He continued his botanical research and his poetry while at Gottingen.

Later Life

The twenty-one years of his life which followed were largely occupied in the discharge of his duties in the minor political post of a Rathausmann which he had obtained by lot, and in the preparation of his Bibliotheca medica, the botanical, surgical and anatomical parts of which he lived to complete; but he also found time to write the three philosophical romances Usong (1771), Alfred (1773) and Fabius and Cato (1774),in which his views as to the respective merits of despotism, of limited monarchy and of aristocratic republican government are fully set forth.
About 1773 the state of his health meant he withdrew from public business. He supported his failing strength by means of opium, on the use of which he communicated a paper to the Proceedings of the Göttingen Royal Society in 1776; the excessive use of the drug is believed, however, to have hastened his death.

Family

Haller, who had been three times married, left eight children. The eldest, Gottlieb Emanuel, attained to some distinction as a botanist and as a writer on Swiss historical bibliography (1785–1788, 7 vols). Another son, Albrecht was also a botanist.

While Haller was still young -- only 28 -- his first wife, Mariane, had died of a venereal disease.

Links to additional material:

• http://www.dromo.info/hallerabio.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_von_Haller#
• http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi658.htm
• https://www.halleriana.ch/albrecht-von-haller/

-----------------------------------------

Boschung, Urs: "Haller, Albrecht von", in: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS) , version from 05.11.2009. Online: https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/010656/2009-11-05/, consulted on July 25, 2021.

--------------------------------------------

Jaeckle, Erwin and Stäuble, Eduard. Grosse Schweizer und Schweizerinnen. Stäfa, ZH, CH. Th. Gut & Co. Verlag, 1990.

-------------------------------------------