Pflüger, Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm

Born June 7, 1829, in Hanau; died Mar. 16, 1910, in Bonn. German physiologist.

Pflüger received his education at the universities of Marburg and Berlin. He was a student of J. Müller and E. Du Bois-Reymond. From 1859 he was a professor at the University of Bonn, where he organized the Institute of Physiology, which he headed until the end of his life. His principal works were on the reflex activity of the spinal cord upon isolation from higher areas of the central nervous system. Especially well known is his work on the effects of a direct current on nerves and muscles (1859), which laid the basis for the study of electrotonus. Pflüger studied general metabolism and carbohydrate metabolism. In 1857 he discovered the inhibiting influence of the sympathetic fibers of the splanchnic nerve on intestinal movement. He also investigated the factors that determine the succession of phases of cleavage of an ovum. In 1868, Pflüger founded the physiological journal Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie, which in 1910 was renamed Pflügers Archiv.