Acceptance of the Neuron Theory by Clinical Neurologists of the Late-Nineteenth Century

This article explores reactions of clinical neurologists of the late-nineteenth century to the concept of a unified nerve cell, the “neuron,” which developed from the research on fine anatomy of the nervous system and from conclusions of Waldeyer based on that research. Assessment shows that Waldeyer's role in the acceptance of the neuron theory was not straightforward. A study of primarily American medical literature shows rapid acceptance, eager applications, and high expectations. Nonetheless, some clinicians were disappointed in its immediate relevance. An explanation for this disappointment is offered.     

Alexander von Humboldt: Galvanism,Animal Electricity,and Self-Experimentation Part 2: The Electric Eel,Animal Electricity,and Later Years

After extensive experimentation during the 1790s, Alexander von Humboldt remained skeptical about “animal electricity” (and metallic electricity), writing instead about an ill-defined galvanic force. With his worldview and wishing to learn more, he studied electric eels in South America just as the new century began, again using his body as a scientific instrument in many of his experiments. As had been the case in the past and for many of the same reasons, some of his findings with the electric eel (and soon after, Italian torpedoes) seemed to argue against biological electricity. But he no longer used galvanic terminology when describing his electric fish experiments. The fact that he now wrote about animal electricity rather than a different “galvanic” force owed much to Alessandro Volta, who had come forth with his “pile” (battery) for multipling the physical and perceptable effects of otherwise weak electricity in 1800, while Humboldt was deep in South America. Humboldt probably read about and saw voltaic batteries in the United States in 1804, but the time he spent with Volta in 1805 was probably more significant in his conversion from a galvanic to an electrical framework for understanding nerve and muscle physiology. Although he did not continue his animal electricity research program after this time, Humboldt retained his worldview of a unified nature and continued to believe in intrinsic animal electricity. He also served as a patron to some of the most important figures in the new field of electrophysiology (e.g., Hermann Helmholtz and Emil du Bois-Reymond), helping to take the research that he had participated in to the next level.     

Hobbes in Kiel, 1938: From Ferdinand Tönnies to Carl Schmitt

This article sheds light on intellectual politics under Nazism by looking at a crucial shift in the field of Hobbes studies that was marked in a congress celebrating the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Thomas Hobbes's birth, organised in Kiel, 1938. Before the congress, the decisive voice in Hobbes studies had for almost fifty years been that of Kiel University professor Ferdinand Tönnies. Tönnies was purged from the university upon the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 and died three years later. At the opening of the Hobbes congress in Kiel, its convener, Cay von Brockdorff, declared that the phase of Hobbes studies shaped by Tönnies was ending and that a new phase, represented by Paul Ritterbusch and Carl Schmitt, had emerged. Against the background of a long tradition of Hobbes studies in Kiel, this article summarises Tönnies's contribution to Hobbes studies; analyses organisation and proceeedings of the congress, paying special attention to politico-theoretical disagreements between Ritterbusch and Schmitt and to von Brockdorff's exploitation of their rivalry; and contextualises Schmitt's interpretation of Hobbes published in the aftermath of the congress.     

Correcting Europe's political economy: The virtuous eclecticism of Georg Ludwig Schmid

The article provides an analysis of Georg Ludwig Schmid's ‘Reflexions sur l’Agriculture’, which was published as the first essay in the first issue of the publications of the Oeconomical Society of Berne, founded in 1759. Schmid connected the agricultural improvement movement of the time to the logic of international power competition that caused the 7 Years’ War and wished to preserve political economy as agronomy for the cause of peace and virtuous economic progress. In his essay on commerce and luxury, he devised a patriotic political economy based on the notion of a marche naturelle, or a natural progress of opulence, which enabled statesmen and political economists to separate the productive from the pathological features of economic development, healthy and necessary growth from luxury. Adam Smith deployed a similar model in the Wealth of Nations but argued that Europe's retrograde development was so fundamental and comprehensive that it made it impossible to use this kind of natural progress model on its own as a meaningful guide for comprehensive economic and political reform.     

On Chinese-Sanskrit Comparative Indexing

Heinrich Heine’s ?Two Chinese Scholars“ Revisited

Twenty-five years ago, the author published a treatise dealing with the two Chinese mentioned by Heinrich Heine in The Harz Journey as well as in a private letter. These men served as teachers for Wilhelm Schott, the future first professor of Chinese at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität of Berlin. Since then, a number of scholars turned to this topic and consider the two of them as pioneers of Chinese immigration to Berlin, Prussia or Germany respectively. Most of these scholars interpret certain facts according to their own liking, though there are no sources at all to support their suppositions. The present paper addresses all these misinterpretations. Moreover, newly discovered contemporary reports about the two Chinese are quoted verbatim.