TREVIRANUS, GOTTFRIED REINHOLD

(b. Bremen, Germany, 4 February 1776; d. Bremen, 16 February 1837)

zootomy, physiology.

Treviranus was the eldest son of Joachim Johann Jacob Treviranus, merchant and later a notary, and brother of the botanist Ludolph Christian Treviranus. He introduced the notion of biology as a distinct discipline into Germany and was one of the first to express the idea that the cell is the structural unit of living matter.

Treviranus was a keen observer and an able theorizer. As an adherent of Naturphilosophie, he supposed that the universal laws of nature were represented by general ideas and that these ideas were the instruments to throw the light of knowledge over the darkness of the world of facts and phenomena. All his studies centered on the theme “What laws underlie living nature?” In order to answer this question, he studied life in all its aspects: generation, food and feeding, psychical processes, geographical distribution, the interaction between mind and body, and the relationship between the organism and its environment. Even before Lamarck published his Philosophie zoologique, Treviranus stated that changes in the physical environment could induce corresponding changes in organic structures—or, as he wrote in his Biologie (1802), any living creature has the ability to adapt its organization to changing external conditions. As a consequence Treviranus was an opponent of Cuvier’s theory of catastrophism. Both Ernst Haeckel and August Weismann considered Treviranus as one of their predecessors. He was so, however, only within the limits of Naturphilosophie; nowhere did Treviranus explain how changes in organic structures were induced nor how they could become hereditary.

From 1793 to 1796 Treviranus studied medicine and mathematics at the University of Göttingen. In the latter year, after having written his doctoral dissertation, he returned to Bremen, where he established a practice as a consulting physician. In his spare time he made observations on the structure and function of living beings, especially of the invertebrates. He was an accomplished microscopist. He prepared most of his beautiful illustrations himself.

In 1797 Treviranus was appointed professor of mathematics and medicine at the Bremen lyceum, and in the same year he published the first volume of Physiologische Fragmente. In 1800 he published the results of a series of experiments concerning the influence of certain chemical substances—particularly of drugs such as opium and belladonna—on plants and animals.

Soon after he had settled in Bremen, Treviranus wrote his magnum opus, Biologie (1802–1822), in which he sought to summarize all basic knowledge of his time about the structure and function of living matter. This six-volume work, intended to be a modernization of Haller’s Elementa physiologiae, greatly influenced his contemporaries. Volume I treats the interpretation of living nature, the basic laws of biology, the empirical basis of biology, the definition of life, and the principles of classification; volume II , the organization of living nature, the distribution of plants and animals, and the influence of external conditions; volume III , growth and development; volume IV , nutrition and the digestive systems in plants and animals, respiration, and circulation; volume V , animal health, animal electricity, phosphorescence, automatic movements in animals and plants, the organization of the nervous system, and instinct; and volume VI , relation between the physical and the psychical worlds, the mind-body problem, and the objective and subjective worlds of the senses.

Treviranus published his ideas in a more condensed form in Erscheinungen und Gesetze (1831–1832), a classic in theoretical biology. In this work he also incorporated an account of the advances made in biology during the preceding thirty years. He paid greater attention to mindbody relations, the process of generation, periodicity, constitution, health and disease, and temperament. Some of these subjects were considered in greater detail in Beiträge zur Aufklärung. . .(1835–1837). In the first and third volumes, Treviranus tried to prove mathematically that the structure of the crystalline lens is responsible for man’s ability to see things in perspective; the second volume contains microscopical investigations of animal tissues.

These theoretical studies induced Treviranus to undertake research in many fields; the results have been recorded in some of his collections, such as Vermischte Schriften (1816–1821); Beobachtungen aus der Zootomie, published by his brother (1839); and Zeitschrift für Physiologie, which he founded in 1824 with his brother Ludolph Christian and Friedrich Tiedemann.

Of particular interest are Treviranus’ anatomical studies on invertebrates, such as those he made on the reproductive organs of worms, mollusks, insects, and arachnids; and on the respiratory and circulatory organs of crustaceans and other invertebrates. Also noteworthy are his monographic studies on the anatomy of the louse, of wingless insects, of snails, and of arachnids. In addition Treviranus performed many microscopic-anatomical studies on vertebrates: the reproductive organs of fishes, amphibians, the tortoise, the mole, the hedgehog, and the guinea pig; the ears of birds and the eye of the narwhal; and the nervous system of birds.

Treviranus paid special attention to the anatomy and physiology of the sensory organs. In Bieträge zur Anatomie he formulated mathematical laws of diffraction in order to discover the physical basis of vision. More particularly he was interested in determining which mechanism in the eye is responsible for our seeing things in their relative positions and what the function may be of such structures as the cornea, lens, and retina. This work contains many comparative studies of the visual processes in the various classes of animals.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Treviranus’ earlier writings include De emendanda physiologia (Göttingen, 1796), his inaugural dissertation; Physiologische Fragmente, 2 vols. (Hannover, 1797–1799); “Über den Einfluss des galvanischen Agens . . .,” in Nordisches Archiv für Natur-und Arzneiwissenschaft, 1 , no. 2 (1800), 240–305; Biologie, oder Philosophie der lebenden Nature für Naturforscher und Aertzte, 6 vols. (Göttingen, 1802–1822); “Ueber den innern Bau der Arachniden,” in Abhandlungen der Physikalisch-medizinischen Societät in Erlangen (1812), no. 1,1–48; Vermischte Schriften anatomischen und physiologischen Inhalts, 4 vols. (Göttingen-Bremen, 1816–1821), written with L. C. Treviranus; “Ueber die Zeugungstheile und die Fortpflanzung der Mollusken,” in Zeitschrift für Physiologie, 1 (1824), 1–55; “Ueber den innern Bau der Schnecke des Ohrs der Vögel,” ibid., 188–196; “Ueber die Harnwerkzeuge und die männlichen Zeugungstheile der Schildkröten überhaupt und besonders der Emys serrata,” ibid.,2 (1827), 282–288; Beriträge zur Anatomie und Physiologie der Sinneswerjzeuge des Menschen und der Thiere (Bremen, 1828); “Ueber das Gehrim und die Sinneswerkzeuge des virginischen Beutelthieres,” in zeitschrift für Physiologie, 3 (18290, 45–61; and “Ueber die Entstehung de geschlechtslosen Individuen bei den Hymenopteren, besonders der Bienen,” ibid., 220–234.

Later works are “Ueber die hinteren Hemisphären des Gehirns der vögel, Amphibien und Fische,” in Zeitschrift für Physiologie, 4 (1831), 39–67; “Ueber das Nervensystem des Scorpions und der Spinne,” ibid., 89–96; “Ueber die Zeugung der Egel,” ibid., 159–167, and 5 (1833), 133–136; Die Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen Lebens, 2 vols. (Bremen, 1831–1832); “Ueber die Verbreitung des Antlitznerven im Labyrinth des Ohrs der Vögel,” in Zeitschrift für Physiologie, 5 (1833), 94–96; “Ueber die Zeugung des Erdregenwurms,” ibid., 154–156; Beiträge zur Aufklärung der Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen Lebens, 3 vols. (bremen, 1835–1837); and Beobachtungen arus der Zootomie und Physiologie, L. C. Treviranus, ed. (Bremen, 1839).

II. Secondary Literature. Biographies are by G. Barkhausen, G. H. Schumacher, and G. Hartlaub, in Biographische Skizzen verstorbener Bremischer Aerzte und Naturforscher (Bremen, 1844), 433–590; and K. F. P. von Martius, Akademische Denkreden (Leipzig, 1866), 55–69. There is a critical evaluation of Treviranus’ study of mollusk reproduction by Lorenz Oken, in Isis (1827), esp. 752–754.

P. Smit