Rudolf Wagner - Life

Life

Rudolf Wagner was born at Bayreuth, where his father was a professor in the gymnasium. He began the study of medicine at Erlangen in 1822. Wagner completed his curriculum in 1826 at Würzburg, where he mainly studied under JL Schönlein in medicine and to Karl Friedrich Heusinger in comparative anatomy. Aided by a public stipend, he spent a year or more studying in the Jardin des Plantes, under the friendly eye of Cuvier, and making zoological discoveries at Cagliari and other places on the Mediterranean.

On his return to Germany he set up a medical practice at Augsburg, where his father had been transferred. A few months later he found an opening for an academic position when he was appointed prosector at Erlangen. In 1832 he became full professor of zoology and comparative anatomy there, and held that office until 1840, when he was called to succeed JF Blumenbach at Göttingen. He remained at the Hanoverian university until his death, being much occupied with administrative work as pro-rector for a number of years, and for nearly the whole of his residence troubled by ill health from tuberculosis.

In 1860 he gave over the physiological part of his teaching to a new chair, retaining the zoological, with which his career had begun. While at Frankfurt, on his way to examine the Neanderthal skull at Bonn, he was struck with paralysis. Wagner died at Göttingen a few months later on 13 May 1864.