Heinrich Müller

Biography of Heinrich Müller

Heinrich Müller studied in Munich, Freiburg, Heidelberg, Würzburg, and Vienna. He was habilitated as Privatdozent in Würzburg in 1847, and from 1849 concentrated his efforts in the study of normal and comparative anatomy, after first having concerned himself more with pathological anatomy. Alternating, and together with Rudolph Albert von Kölliker (1817-1905), Müller lectured at the Würzburger Hochschule. He was professor extraordinary from 1852, from 1858 professor ordinarius of topographical and comparative anatomy, while also giving courses in the microscopical anatomy of the eye, particularly of the retina.

In 1851 Müller discovered rhodopsin, or visual purple, a pigment in the outer segment of retinal rods. In 1856, with Kölliker, he demonstrated that each contraction of a frog's heart produces an electrical current. Kölliker and Müller were the first to measure action currents from cardiac muscle. In 1858 he published classic descriptions of three eye muscles: the superior and inferior muscles of the tarsal plate, the muscle that bridges the inferior orbital fissure, and the innermost fibres of the circular portion of the ciliary muscle.