Ernst Julius Richard Ewald

Ernst Julius Richard Ewald (1855 to 1921) was a German physiologist born in Berlin, the younger brother of the gastroenterologist Carl Anton Ewald. After studies in mathematics, physics and medicine he became in 1880 an assistant to the physiologist Friedrich Goltz at the University of Strasbourg and succeeded him as chair of physiology there in 1900, holding the post until 1918. He is best remembered for his research on the vestibular system of the inner ear, based largely on experiments on the semicircular canals of pigeons, from which the so-called Ewald laws on how endolymph movement affects eye, head and body movements are derived. In 1892 the Paris Academy of Sciences gave him an award for his monograph on the end organ of the eighth cranial nerve.