Haller, Albrecht von (1708-1777), a Swiss physician, made important studies of the body’s nervous system and muscles. These studies helped provide the foundation for neurology, the study of diseases of the nervous system and muscles.
Haller’s most famous work is his eight-volume Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (Elements of Human Physiology) (1757-1766). In this work, Haller provided descriptions of all the known organs of the human body. He then explained how many of these organs function. For example, Haller discovered that the heart beats because its muscles are constantly stimulated when the organ’s cavities fill with blood. Haller organized many body parts according to how “irritable” they were–that is, how much they reacted to stimulation. Although these studies did not deal directly with the nervous system, they provided the basis for later work in neurology.
Haller was born in Bern, Switzerland. In 1727, he received a medical degree from the University of Leiden, in what is now the Netherlands. Haller taught at the University of Gottingen, in present-day Germany, from 1736 to 1753. He also worked as a botanist and classified many Swiss plants.
