Albrecht von Haller

Albrecht von Haller , 1708-77, Swiss scientist and writer. He had already won distinction as botanist and poet when he was appointed (1736) professor of anatomy, medicine, and botany at the Univ. of Göttingen. There he carried on the research in experimental physiology for which he is especially famed and on which he based his theory of the irritability (known today as contractility) of muscle tissue, set forth in A Dissertation on the Sensible and Irritable Parts of Animals (1732, tr. 1936). He returned (1753) to his native Bern, where he continued his research and took part in public affairs. Among his voluminous writings are Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (8 vol., 1757-66); noted bibliographies in anatomy, surgery, botany, and medicine; and a volume of poems, Versuch schweizerischer Gedichte (1732).

Haller, Albrecht von (1708–77) Swiss biologist, physician, and poet. As a botanist he was celebrated for his descriptions of alpine flora, and as a poet for The Alps (1729), with its glorification of the mountains. In 1736, he researched the properties of muscle tissue, and his resulting treatise (1757–66) laid the foundations of modern neurology and physiology.

Haller, Karl Christoph Joachim, Freiherr von Hallerstein (1774–1817). German architect. A pupil of David Gilly, he was one of the first (with T. Allason and C. R. Cockerell) to discover the entasis on Greek columns. With Foster, Jakob Linckh (1786–1841), and Cockerell he discovered the Aegina marbles (1811), and helped to survey the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. He submitted a design for the Walhalla, near Regensburg (1814–15), consisting of a massive series of battered platforms, a propylaeum with three pylon-towers, and a Greek Revival temple on top, obviously inspired by F. Gilly's monument to Frederick the Great (1797). His unrealized proposals for the Munich Glyptothek (Sculpture Gallery—1814) combined Greek and Egyptian elements. Leo von Klenze built both projects to his own designs, retaining Haller's platform idea at Walhalla.

Bibliography

Colvin (1995);
Watkin & and Mellinghoff (1987)