Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke (1819 to 1892) was a German physician and physiologist. Born in Berlin, he graduated in medicine there in 1842 and became a research assistant to Johannes Peter Müller. In 1845 he helped found the Berlin Physical Society with Emil Du Bois-Reymond and Hermann von Helmholtz. He became professor of physiology at Königsberg in 1848 and at the University of Vienna in 1849, and he retired in 1890. His work covered the nature of cells, the physiology of language, the effect of electricity on muscles, albumin, optics and the tapetum lucidum of the vertebrate eye, colour sensation, pigment cells and microscopic anatomy. He is best remembered as an influential teacher of Sigmund Freud, who worked in his laboratory from 1877 to 1883 and called him the professor who shaped him most.