Ludwig, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm

Born Dec. 29, 1816, in Witzenhausen; died Apr. 24, 1895, in Leipzig. German physiologist.

Ludwig graduated from the University of Marburg in 1839 and became a professor there in 1846. He became a professor at the University of Zurich in 1849 and at the Academy of Military Medicine in Vienna in 1855. In 1865 he became head of the Institute of Physiology in Leipzig. Ludwig proposed a physical theory of urinary excretion (1846), discovered the secretory nerves of the salivary glands (1851), investigated cardiovascular activity, and studied gas exchange. He and the Russian physiologist I. F. Tsion discovered the afferent (depressor) nerve that branches off the aortic arch and demonstrated its role in regulating cardiovascular activity (1866). Ludwig inspired a major school of physiologists. Among those who worked in his laboratories were the Russian scientists I. M. Dogel’, F. V. Ovsiannikov, N. O. Kovalevskii, I. M. Sechenov, and I. P. Pavlov.