Heinrich Müller (physiologist)

Heinrich Müller (1820 to 1864) was a German anatomist and professor at the University of Würzburg, best known for comparative anatomy and for studies of the eye. A native of Castell in Lower Franconia, he studied at several universities, habilitated at Würzburg in 1847 and from 1858 held the full chair of topographical and comparative anatomy. In 1851 he noticed the red colour of the rod cells now known as rhodopsin, though credit for describing its cycle went to Franz Christian Boll. He described the neuroglial supporting fibres of the retina, later called Müller's fibres, and with Carl Bergmann located the site where vision begins in the rods and cones. In 1856, with Albert von Kölliker, he showed that each contraction of a frog's heart produces an electric current.