He studied medicine at the University of Breslau under Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs and at the University of Berlin under Rudolf Virchow and Moritz Heinrich Romberg, graduating from the latter institution in 1859.
Career
During the same year he was named physician at the Allerheiligen Hospital in Breslau. In 1868 he became chief physician at the "Findelhaus" (municipal poorhouse). And from 1874 was a professor at the University of Göttingen, where he subsequently served as director of the university hospital and dispensary (from 1877).