Carl Ludwig and the Leipzig Physiological Institute: 'a factory of new knowledge'.

ONE OF THE MOST productive biomedical research departments in the history of mankind was Carl Ludwig's physiologic institute at the University of Leipzig during the final third of the 19th century.1 The pioneering pharmacologist T. Lauder Brunton claimed nearly a century ago, "More than to anyone else since the time of Harvey, do we owe our present knowledge of the circulation to Carl Ludwig."2 Although he was an outstanding physiologist who made several significant discoveries, Ludwig's most important contribution was his role in training two generations of physiologists in his Leipzig institute. It was from the German university system that much of the current structure and philosophy of American academic medicine evolved over the past century. In 1892, the eminent British biologist and educational reformer Thomas H. Huxley declared that the "modern" university is a "a factory of new knowledge: its professors have to be at the top of the wave of progress. Research and criticism must be the breath of their nostrils; laboratory work the main business of the scientific student; books his main helpers."3 Carl Ludwig's institute was the embodiment of Huxley's ideal for higher education. During the second half of the 19th century, unprecedented advances in knowledge about the structure and function of living organisms were made in the laboratories of the German universities. Government sponsorship of academic posts and research programs provided opportunities for individuals to devote themselves to careers in biomedical research and teaching. Although the emphasis in the physiology