Ewald Hering
| Ewald Hering | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
5 August 1834 Alt-Gersdorf, Saxony |
| Died | 26 January 1918 (aged 83) Leipzig, Saxony |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Physiology |
| Alma mater | Leipzig University |
| Known for | Binocular vision, eye movements, color vision |
Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering (5 August 1834 – 26 January 1918) was a German physiologist who did much research into color vision, binocular perception and eye movements. He proposed opponent color theory in 1892.
Born in Alt-Gersdorf, Kingdom of Saxony, Hering studied at the University of Leipzig and became a professor at Charles University in Prague.
Hering was born in Altgersdorf in Saxony, Germany. He grew up in a probably poor family, son of a Lutheran pastor. Hering attended gymnasium in Zittau and entered the university of Leipzig in 1853. There he studied philosophy, zoology and medicine. He completed an M.D. degree in 1860.
It is somewhat unclear how Hering trained to do research. At the time Johannes Müller was perhaps the most famous physiologist in Germany. Hering seems to have applied for studying under his direction but was rejected (ref needed), which might have contributed to his animosity towards von Helmholtz, Müller's protégé. However, in Leipzig E. H. Weber and G. T. Fechner were conducting groundbreaking studies founding what would become the field of psychophysics. Although there is no evidence that Hering ever studied under their direction, in his later years he will proudly acknowledge himself a "student of Fechner".
After graduating, he practiced as a physician in Leipzig. With little time to do research and even scarcer financial resources, he turned to binocular vision and the problem of the horopter. There, he surprised the scientific community when he published, as a completely unknown scientist, his own mathematical derivation of the horopter independently from Hermann von Helmholtz, who was by then considered one of the best German scientist and mathematician. Hering went as far as ridiculing Helmholtz's (unimportant) mathematical errors in his derivation of the horopter.
Hering was subsequently appointed professor of physiology at the military academy of Vienna until 1870. With better resources he conducted important studies in physiology, in particular on the cardiac and respiratory systems. In 1870, he succeeded Purkinje at the university of Prague where he remained for the next 25 years. There he became involved in fierce arguments between nationalistic Czechs who wanted the university taught in the language of the land, and a minority of German professors. Eventually a separate German university was created in 1882 and Hering became its first rector.
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