scholar, and acquired from him an intimate knowledge of the Ethiopian language. In 1652 he entered the service of the duke of Saxe-Gotha, in which he continued until 1678, when he retired to Frankfort-on-Main. In 1683 he visited England to promote a cherished scheme for establishing trade with Abyssinia, but his efforts were unsuccessful, chiefly through the bigotry of the authorities of the Abyssinian Church. Returning to Frankfort in 1684, he gave himself wholly to literary work, which he continued almost to his death on the 8th of April 1704. In 1690 he was appointed president of the collegium imperiale historicum.
The works of Ludolf, who is said to have been acquainted with twenty-five languages, include Sciagraphia historiae aethiopicae (Jena, 1676); and the Historia aethiopica (Frankfort, 1681), which has been translated into English, French and Dutch, and which was supplemented by a Commentarius (1691) and by Appendices (1693–1694). Among his other works are: Grammatica linguae amharicae (Frankfort, 1698); Lexicon amharico-latinum (Frankfort, 1698); Lexicon aethiopico-latinum (Frankfort, 1699); and Grammatica aethiopica (London, 1661, and Frankfort, 1702). In his Grammatik der äthiopischen Sprache (1857) August Dillmann throws doubt on the story of Ludolf’s intimacy with Gregorius.
See C. Juncker, Commentarius de vita et scriptis Jobi Ludolfi (Frankfort, 1710); L. Diestel, Geschichte des alten Testaments in der christlichen Kirche (Jena, 1868); and J. Flemming, “Hiob Ludolf,” in the Beiträge zur Assyriologie (Leipzig, 1890–1891).
LUDWIG, KARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1816–1895), German physiologist, was born at Witzenhausen, near Cassel, on the 29th of December 1816. He studied medicine at Erlangen and Marburg, taking his doctor’s degree at Marburg in 1839. He made Marburg his home for the next ten years, studying and teaching anatomy and physiology, first as prosector to F. L. Fick (1841), then as privat-docent (1842), and finally as extraordinary professor (1846). In 1849 he was chosen professor of anatomy and physiology at Zürich, and six years afterwards he went to Vienna as professor in the Josephinum (school for military surgeons). In 1865 he was appointed to the newly created chair of physiology at Leipzig, and continued there until his death on the 23rd of April 1895. Ludwig’s name is prominent in the history of physiology, and he had a large share in bringing about the change in the method of that science which took place about the middle of the 19th century. With his friends H. von Helmholtz, E. W. Brücke and E. Du Bois-Reymond, whom he met for the first time in Berlin in 1847, he rejected the assumption that the phenomena of living animals depend on special biological laws and vital forces different from those which operate in the domain of inorganic nature; and he sought to explain them by reference to the same laws as are applicable in the case of physical and chemical phenomena. This point of view was expressed in his celebrated Text-book of Human Physiology (1852–1856), but it is as evident in his earliest paper (1842) on the process of urinary secretion as in all his subsequent work. Ludwig exercised enormous influence on the progress of physiology, not only by the discoveries he made, but also by the new methods and apparatus he introduced to its service. Thus in regard to secretion, he showed that secretory glands, such as the submaxillary, are more than mere filters, and that their secretory action is attended by chemical and thermal changes both in themselves and in the blood passing through them. He demonstrated the existence of a new class of secretory nerves that control this action, and by showing that if the nerves are appropriately stimulated the salivary glands continue to secrete, even though the animal be decapitated, he initiated the method of experimenting with excised organs. He devised the kymograph as a means of obtaining a written record of the variations in the pressure of the blood in the blood-vessels; and this apparatus not only conducted him to many important conclusions respecting the mechanics of the circulation, but afforded the first instance of the use of the graphic method in physiological inquiries. For the purpose of his researches on the gases in the blood, he designed the mercurial blood-pump which in various modifications has come into extensive use, and by its aid he made many investigations on the gases of the lymph, the gaseous interchanges in living muscle, the significance of oxidized material in the blood, &c. There is indeed scarcely any branch of physiology, except the physiology of the senses, to which he did not make important contributions. He was also a great power as a teacher and the founder of a school. Under him the Physiological Institute at Leipzig became an organized centre of physiological research, whence issued a steady stream of original work; and though the papers containing the results usually bore the name of his pupils only, every investigation was inspired by him and carried out under his personal direction. Thus his pupils gained a practical acquaintance with his methods and ways of thought, and, coming from all parts of Europe, they returned to their own countries to spread and extend his doctrines. Possessed himself of extraordinary manipulative skill, he abhorred rough and clumsy work, and he insisted that experiments on animals should be planned and prepared with the utmost care, not only to avoid the infliction of pain (which was also guarded against by the use of an anaesthetic), but to ensure that the deductions drawn from them should have their full scientific value.
LUDWIG, OTTO (1813–1865), German dramatist, novelist
and critic, was born at Eisfeld in Thuringia, on the 11th of
February 1813. His father, who was syndic of Eisfeld, died when
the boy was twelve years old, and he was brought up amidst
uncongenial conditions. He had devoted his leisure to poetry
and music, which unfitted him for the mercantile career planned
for him. The attention of the duke of Meiningen was directed
to one of his musical compositions, an opera, Die Köhlerin, and
Ludwig was enabled in 1839 to continue his musical studies under
Mendelssohn in Leipzig. But ill-health and constitutional
shyness caused him to give up a musical career, and he turned
exclusively to literary studies, and wrote several stories and
dramas. Of the latter, Der Erbförster (1850) attracted immediate
attention as a masterly psychological study. It was followed
by Die Makkabäer (1852), in which the realistic method of
Der Erbförster was transferred to an historical milieu, which
allowed more brilliant colouring and a freer play of the imagination.
With these tragedies, to which may be added Die Rechte
des Herzens and Das Fräulein von Scuderi, the comedy Hans
Frey, and an unfinished tragedy on the subject of Agnes
Bernauer, Ludwig ranks immediately after Hebbel as Germany’s
most notable dramatic poet at the middle of the 19th century.
Meanwhile he had married and settled permanently in Dresden,
where he turned his attention to fiction. He published a
series of admirable stories of Thuringian life, characterized by
the same attention to minute detail and careful psychological
analysis as his dramas. The best of these are Die Heiteretei
und ihr Widerspiel (1851), and Ludwig’s masterpiece, the powerful
novel, Zwischen Himmel und Erde (1855). In his Shakespeare-Studien
(not published until 1891) Ludwig showed himself a discriminating
critic, with a fine insight into the hidden springs of
the creative imagination. So great, however, was his enthusiasm
for Shakespeare, that he was led to depreciate Schiller in a way
which found little favour among his countrymen. He died at
Dresden on the 25th of February 1865.
Ludwig’s Gesammelte Schriften were published by A. Stern and E. Schmidt in 6 vols. (1891–1892); also by A. Bartels (6 vols., 1900). See A. Stern, Otto Ludwig, ein Dichterleben (1891; 2nd ed., 1906), and A. Sauer, Otto Ludwig (1893).
LUDWIGSBURG, a town in the kingdom of Württemberg, 9 m. to the N. of Stuttgart by rail and 112 m. from the river Neckar. Pop. (1905) 23,093. It was founded and laid out at the beginning of the 18th century by the duke of Württemberg, Eberhard Louis, and was enlarged and improved by Duke Charles Eugène. Constructed as the adjunct of a palace the town bears the impress of its origin, with its straight streets and spacious squares. It is now mainly important as the chief military depot in Württemberg. The royal palace, one of the finest in Germany, stands in a beautiful park and contains a portrait gallery and the burial vault of the rulers of Württemberg. The industries include the manufacture of organs and pianos, of cotton, woollen and linen goods, of chemicals, iron and wire goods, and brewing and brick-making. In the vicinity is the beautiful royal residence of Monrepos, which is connected with the park of Ludwigsburg by a fine avenue of lime trees. From 1758 to
