"Müller made mistakes, but then who ever fails to make mistakes in the face of nature? As a rule, however, he hit the nail on the head. There are many suggestive thoughts from him that the investigators of later times have proved to be true. He suggested, for instance, that there must necessarily be some connection between the ganglionic bodies and the nerve stems. He suggested, also, that there must be a special nerve system for the intestinal tract. Later discoveries in physiology have established both of these thoughts and have shown that Müller had so entered into the spirit of nature and her processes as to be able to think her thoughts. There is no doubt that there are suggestions in [{244}] his writings, especially those of the later years of his life, which will give a series of triumphal substantiations of the same kind."
Du Bois-Reymond's final judgment is of special interest, because it tries to point out the comparative place that will be occupied by three great men in the biological sciences of a century ago:
"Haller and Müller must be considered as giants of earlier days, though when future generations compare them with Cuvier they will occupy somewhat of the position that Galileo and Newton hold in comparison to La Place and Gauss, or Lavoisier in comparison to Berzelius. The first of these men had the opportunity to do great things while it was yet possible to do them, and left to their successors only the possibility of developing their thoughts." [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: Some idea of the estimation in which Müller was held by his contemporaries, German and foreign, may be gathered from the number of scientific bodies of which he was a member. He was an associate in practically every serious scientific body in Germany. He was, besides, foreign member of the scientific academies at Stockholm, Munich, Brussels, Amsterdam; the scientific societies of Göttingen, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen; foreign honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of Vienna; corresponding member of the Academies of St. Petersburg, Turin, Bologna, Paris and Messina; of the Society for Science at Upsala, of the Mecklenburg Naturalist Society of Rostock, of the Senkenberg Institute of Frankfort-on-Main, of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, of the Society of the Museum of Natural History at Strasbourg, of the Naturalists' Association of Dutch East India; member of the Holland Society of Sciences, Haarlem; of the Naturalist Society of Frieburg in Breisgau, Halle, Dantzig and Mainz; of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, of the Society of Biology of Paris; honorary member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, of the Natural Science Union of Hamburg, and the Natural Science Association of the Prussian Rheinland and Westphalia, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, of the Ethnological Society of London, of the Microscopic Association of Giessan, member of the Society for Science and Medicine at Heidelburg, of the Naturalists' Society at Dresden; corresponding member of the Scientific and Medical Association of Erlangen and Moscow; member of the Academy of Medicine of Paris; honorary member of the Academy of Medicine of Prague and of Dorpat, of the Medico-Chirurgical Academies of Wilna and of St. Petersburg, of the Medical Society of Guy's Hospital in London, of the Medical Society of Edinburgh and of the Hunterian Society of the same city, and of the Medico-Chirurgical Societies of London and of Zurich, of the Medical Societies of Budapest, of Lisbon, of Algiers and Constantinople; corresponding member of the Medico-Chirurgical Academy of Turin and of the Medical Society of Vienna.
Even this long list does not include all his various honorary and active memberships in scientific and medical societies. He was, besides, the laureate, that is, a prize winner, of the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn, of the Sömmering Prize of the Senkenberg Institution, of the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, of the Culver Prize Monthyon of the same institution, as well as laureate of the Academy of Sciences of Vienna for Experimental Physiology. He had been honored by the King of Prussia by the conferment of the knighthood of the Order of the Red Eagle, by the King of Sweden by the Royal Swedish Order of the North Star, by the King of Bavaria by the Royal Bavarian Maximilian Order, and by the King of Sardinia by a knighthood in the Order of SS. Mauritius and Lazarus.]
It is as a teacher that Müller did his best work. He was not by nature a good talker and never said much, but he was very direct; and, as he spoke from the largest possible and most progressive knowledge of the subject, his lectures were always interesting to serious students. There seems to be a more or less general agreement that for the mass of his students he was uninteresting because likely to be above their heads. For the talented members of his class, however, he was an ideal teacher--always suggestive, always to the point, and eminently complete. Du Bois-Reymond says that he never was confused, never repeated himself, and never contradicted himself.
He was able to illustrate his lectures by sketches on the board in a way that enabled students to follow every step of [{246}] even a complex, embryological developmental process. He could trace, step by step, with the chalk, every stage of evolution in the organism and bring it clearly before his students. To a narrow circle of the best men within his class he became a personal friend, whose inspiration led them on to the deepest original researches. Among his students were some of the men who made German medicine and German science known all over the world in the last fifty years. Chief among them may be mentioned Virchow, Helmholtz, Du Bois-Reymond, Schwann, Lieberkuhn, the discoverer of the follicles in the intestines; Max Schultze, whose work in histology and physiology are well known; Claparede, Remak, Guido, Wagener, Lachmann and Reichert.
What he demanded of his students above all was that they should learn to help themselves. He set them tasks, gave them suggestions, directed their work, corrected their errors, but he wanted them to do work for themselves. His very presence was an inspiration. Both Virchow and Du Bois-Reymond speak of the power of his eye. Du Bois-Reymond says that there was in him an almost demoniac magic, and that students looked to him as the soldiers of the first Napoleon did when the great Emperor's words were in their ears--"Soldiers, the Emperor has his eye on you." Du Bois-Reymond adds that, consciously or unconsciously, every student felt the winning influence of his great personality. With all this he knew how to unbend, especially with favorite students, and many a joke from him found its way around the laboratory even during working hours. He was not one to stand on his dignity, and Virchow tells of him that even when nearly fifty he was known to race with a student down the corridor from one class-room door to another. He took up skating at the age of forty-five, and though he had not many friends and was too entirely devoted to his work to make [{247}] many acquaintances, it was always a source of pleasure to young men to be allowed to associate with him, and many eagerly sought the privilege.
How impressive a figure Müller made in his character of teacher can be gathered best, perhaps, from a note added to Virchow's panegyric during its progress through the press, in which the pupil tells his impressions of the master:
"I must confess that Müller, in his lectures and in his manner, reminded me of a Catholic priest, which might be accounted for by the impressions of his early childhood. When as the dean of the Faculty he mounted the cathedra superior, dressed in his official robes, and pronounced the Latin formulary of the proclamation of the doctors of medicine, with short, broken and contracted words; when he began his ordinary lectures in almost murmured syllables; or, when with religious earnestness he was discussing any of the abstruse questions of physiology, his tone and manner, his gestures and looks, all betrayed the traditional training of the Catholic priest."