Background

Hermann Friedrich Stannius was born on March 15, 1808, in Hamburg, Germany. Stannius was the son of a merchant, Johann Wilhelm Julius Stannius, and the former Johanna Flügge.

Education

After attending the Johanneum in Hamburg, he began his medical studies at the Akademisches Gymnasium there in 1825. To complete his studies, Stannius went to Berlin in 1828 and then to Breslau, where he finished a doctoral dissertation in comparative anatomy on November 26, 1831.

Career

After receiving his doctorate degree in Breslau, Stannius returned to Berlin, where he became an assistant at the Friedrichstädter-Krankenhaus (1831-1837) while working as a general practitioner, Stannius was habilitated as Dozent here. Simultaneously he investigated a great number of questions in entomology and pathological anatomy.

On October 3, 1837, Stannius, then aged twenty-nine, was offered an appointment as a full professor of comparative anatomy, physiology, and general pathology at Rostock University and as director of the institute for the same fields. He lectured on these subjects and also taught histology from 1840 to 1862.

He also became a member of the Grossherzogliches Mecklenburg-Schwerin Medizinal-Kollegium in Rostock, replacing Samuel Gottlieb von Vogel (1750-1837) and from 1860 held the title of Obermedizinalrat.

Although Stannius had been in poor health since 1843, he succeeded to the rectorship of the university in 1850 and carried out much fruitful scientific research until 1854. Beginning in 1855 his illness, a serious nervous disease connected with mental disturbances, grew worse, and in 1862 it obliged him to abandon his work.

Although his health and his position at the university allowed Stannius to undertake scientific work for only seventeen years, he nevertheless gained a reputation in various fields of research. He first worked in entomology, dealing with the structure of the Diptera and with deformities of insects (1835).

He was a long-time friend of Rudolph Wagner (1805-1864), an anatomist, zoologist and physiologist at Göttingen University. Of the contributions he undertook to write for Wagner’ Dictionary of Physiology, he was able to finish only the article on fever (1842), which he said resulted from a “changed mood” of the nervous system.

Achievements

• Stannius's major achievement was accomplished in the field of general pathology. His outstanding monograph was the second volume of Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie der Wirbeltiere (1846). He also succeeded in the important research of the nervous system and the brains of sturgeons and dolphins (1846, 1849), and he conducted pharmacological studies on the effects of strychnine and digitalis (1837, 1851).

Works

More photos

• book

  • Lehrbuch Der Vergleichenden Anatomie

    (Volume 2)

    1852
  • Lehrbuch Der Vergleichenden Anatomie

    (Volume 1)

    1852
  • Beitrage zur Kenntniss der amerikanischen Manati's 1845
  • Das Peripherische Nervensystem Der Fische: Anatomisch Und Phyiologisch Untersucht 1849
  • Symbolae ad anatomiam piscium 1839
  • Handbuch der Anatomie der Wirbelthiere 1854
  • Nouveau manuel d'anatomie comparee 1850
  • Beobachtungen über Verjüngungsvorgänge im thierischen Organismus 1853

Views

Hermann Friedrich Stannius specialized in the insect order Diptera especially the family Dolichopodidae.

Personality

In 1855 Stannius was affected by a serious nervous disease connected with mental disturbances. After 1862 it worsened and for that reason, he had to abandon his work. The last twenty years of his life were spent in a mental hospital at Sachsenburg.

Connections

Father:

Johann Wilhelm Julius Stannius,

Mother:

Johanna Flügge

Friend:

Rudolph Wagner

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography Volume 11
  1975
• Biographisches Lexicon der Hervorragenden Arzte aller Zeiten und Volker
  1929
• Zur Geschichte des anatomischen Unterrichts in Berlin
  1917