Alexander Wilhelm Goette

Background

Alexander Goette was born on December 31, 1840, in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the son of Ernst Bernhard Goette, a physician and counselor of state in St. Petersburg, and the former Natalie Bagh.

Education

Alexander studied medicine at the University of Dorpat (today University of Tartu) from 1860 to 1865 and completed his training with a Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Tübingen under Franz Leydig.

Career

After graduating, Goette worked as an independent scholar and in 1872 qualified as a lecturer under the Strasbourg zoologist Oscar Schmidt, at the same time becoming an assistant in the Zoological Institute of the University of Strasbourg. Named an associate professor in 1877, he took the additional post in 1880 of director of the zoological collection of the Municipal Museum of Strasbourg. From 1882 to 1886 Goette was professor of zoology at the University of Rostock. He was called back to Strasbourg in 1886 as Schmidt’s successor. In 1918 he left Strasbourg and spent his last years in Heidelberg.

Following several minor investigations in vertebrate embryology, Goette’s principal work, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Unke als Grundlage einer vergleichenden Morphologie der Wirbelthiere, appeared in 1875. Along with a detailed description of the development of the organs of Bombinator igneus, he gave a detailed presentation of his ideas of the methods and problems of ontogenetic research.

With Wilhelm His and August Rauber, Goette was one of the pioneers in research in developmental physiology, which soon became a separate field of study in the “developmental mechanics” of Wilhelm Roux. Goette’s own careful investigations on animal embryology remained purely descriptive. After 1875 they treated most invertebrate groups as well: sponges, coelenterates, worms, mollusks, and echinoderms.

Besides his zoological writings, Goette published Holbeins Totentanz und seine Vorbilder, which shows his thorough knowledge of the history of art and culture.

Achievements

• Alexander Goette was a prominent zoologist. He is remembered for his studies involving the biological development of various animals. The invertebrate species Opisthocystis goettei is named after him.

Works

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  • Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgeschichte des Darmkanals im Hühnchen 1867
  • Die Entwicklungsgeschichte Der Unke (Bombinator Igneus) Als Grundlage Einer Vergleichenden Morphologie Der Wirbelthiere 1875
  • Ueber Entwicklung Und Regeneration Des Gliedmassenskelets Der Molche 1879
  • Über Den Ursprung Des Todes 1883
  • Abhandlungen Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte Der Tiere 1886
  • Claus und die Entwicklung der Scyphomedusen 1891
  • Holbeins Totentanz und seine Vorbilder 1897
  • Lehrbuch der Zoologie 1902

Views

In opposition to the dominant phylogenetic interpretation of embryonic development, Goette emphasized the necessity of investigating purely ontological and physiological regularities as a basis for the understanding of morphological phenomena, thereby criticizing Ernst Haeckel’s gastraea theory and the “biogenetic law,” which said nothing about the causation involved in the events occurring during ontogenesis. Haeckel responded immediately with the polemic work Ziele und Wege der heutigen Entwicklungsgeschichte, in which he presented Goette as an opponent of Darwin’s theory. Yet Goette had always acknowledged the theory of descent, although he was critical of the explanation of species transformation by means of the theory of selection, especially because of Darwin’s (and Haeckel’s) acceptance of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Goette sought to explain developmental processes through a particular “law of form” which ruled the world of living creatures. This conception superimposed purely mechanical operations upon a teleological and vitalistic interpretation of life itself. He viewed cell division as a purely chemicophysical process.

Goette had a little-known dispute with August Weismann concerning the “duration of life” and the definition of death. Whereas Weismann accepted the concept of “natural death” only for multicell forms of life, Goette defended the position that death is the necessary concomitant of reproduction and that there is no absolute continuity of life.

Connections

Father:

Ernst Bernhard Goette

Mother:

Natalie Bagh Goette

colleague:

Eduard Oscar Schmidt

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography