ambitious subject of “the historical development of epidemic and contagious diseases all over the world, with the laws of their diffusion,” which showed the influence of Schönlein. His first treatise was Die Naturgeschichte des Menschen (in 2 vols., Kempten, 1831). Frequent journeys to the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the North Sea gave him abundant materials for research on invertebrate anatomy and physiology, which he communicated first to the Munich academy of sciences, and republished in his Beiträge zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Blutes (Leipzig, 1832-1833), with additions in 1838). In 1834-1835 he brought out a text-book on the subject of his chair (Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie, Leipzig), which recommended itself to students by its clear and concise style. A new edition of it appeared in 1843 under the title of Lehrbuch der Zootomie, of which only the vertebrate section was corrected by himself. The precision of his earlier work is evidenced by his Micrometric Measurements of the Elementary Parts of Man and Animals (Leipzig, 1834). His zoological labours may be said to conclude with the atlas Icones zootomicae (Leipzig, 1841). In 1835 he communicated to the Munich academy of sciences his researches on the physiology of generation and development, including the famous discovery of the germinal vesicle of the human ovum. These were republished under the title Prodromus historiae generationis hominis atque animalium (Leipzig, 1836). As in zoology, his original researches in physiology were followed by a students' text-book, Lehrbuch der speciellen Physiologie (Leipzig, 1838), which soon reached a third edition, and was translated into French and English. This was supplemented by an atlas, Icones physiologicae (Leipzig, 1839). To the same period belongs a very interesting but now little known work on medicine proper, of a historical and synthetic scope, Grundriss der Encyklopädie und Methodologie der medicinischen Wissenschaften nach geschichtlicher Ansicht (Erlangen, 1838), which was translated into Danish. About the same time he worked at a translation of J. C. Prichard's Natural History of Man, and edited various writings of S. T. Sömmerring, with a biography of that anatomist (1844), which he himself fancied most of all his writings. In 1843, after his removal to Göttingen, he began his great Handwörterbuch der Physiologie, mit Rucksicht auf physiologische Pathologie, and brought out the fifth (supplementary) volume in 1852; the only contributions of his own in it were on the sympathetic nerve, nerve-ganglia and nerve-endings, and he modestly disclaimed all merit except as being the organizer. While resident in Italy for his health from 1845 to 1847, he occupied himself with researches on the electrical organ of the torpedo and on nervous organization generally; these he published in 1853-1854 (Neurologische Untersuchungen, Göttingen), and therewith his physiological period may be said to end. His next period was stormy and controversial. He entered the lists boldly against the materialism of “Stoff und Kraft,” and avowed himself a Christian believer, whereupon he lost the countenance of a number of his old friends and pupils, and was unfeelingly told that he was suffering from an “atrophy of the brain.” His quarrel with the materialists began with his oration at the Göttingen meeting of the Naturforscher-Versammlung in 1854, on “Menschenschöpfung und Seelensubstanz.” This was followed by a series of “Physiological Letters” in the Allgemeine Zeitung, by an essay on “Glauben und Wissen,” and by the most important piece of this series, “Der Kampf um die Seele” (Göttingen, 1857). Having come to the consideration of these philosophical problems late in life, he was at some disadvantage; but he endeavoured to join as he best could in the current of contemporary German thought. He had an exact knowledge of classical German writings, more especially of Goethe's, and of the literature connected with him. In what may be called his fourth and last period, Wagner became anthropologist and archaeologist, occupied himself with the cabinet of skulls in the Göttingen museum collected by Blumenbach and with the excavation of prehistoric remains, corresponded actively with the anthropological societies of Paris and London, and organized, in co-operation with the veteran K. E. von Baer, a successful congress of anthropologists at Göttingen in 1861. His last writings were memoirs on the convolutions of the human brain, on the weight of brains, and on the brains of idiots (1860-1862).
See memoir by his eldest son in the Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, “Nachrichten” for 1864.
WAGNER, WILHELM RICHARD (1813-1883), German dramatic composer, poet and essay-writer, was born at Leipzig on the 22nd of May 1813. In 1822 he was sent to the Kreuzschule at Dresden, where he did so well that, four years later, he translated the first twelve books of the Odyssey for amusement. In 1828 he was removed to the Nicolaischule at Leipzig, where he was less successful. His first music master was Gottlieb Müller, who thought him self-willed and eccentric; and his first production as a composer was an overture, performed at the Leipzig theatre in 1830. In that year he matriculated at the university, and took lessons in composition from Theodor Weinlig, cantor at the Thomasschule. A symphony was produced at the Gewandhaus concerts in 1833, and in the following year he was appointed conductor of the opera at Magdeburg. The post was unprofitable, and Wagner's life at this period was very unsettled. He had composed an opera called Die Feen adapted by himself from Gozzi's La Donna Serpente, and another, Das Liebesverbot, founded on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, but only Das Liebesverbot obtained a single performance in 1836.
In that year Wagner married Wilhelmina Planer, an actress at the theatre at Königsberg. He had accepted an engagement there as conductor; but, the lessee becoming bankrupt, the scheme was abandoned in favour of a better appointment at Riga. Accepting this, he remained actively employed until 1839, when he made his first visit to Paris, taking with him an unfinished opera based on Bulwer Lytton's Rienzi, and, like his earlier attempts, on his own libretto. The venture proved most unfortunate. Wagner failed to gain a footing, and Rienzi, destined for the Grand Opera, was rejected. He completed it, however, and in 1842 it was produced at Dresden, where, with Madame Schroeder Devrient and Herr Tichatschek in the principal parts, it achieved a success which went far to make him famous.
But though in Rienzi Wagner had shown energy and ambition, that work was far from representing his preconceived ideal. This he now endeavoured to embody in Der fliegende Holländer, for which he designed a libretto quite independent of any other treatment of the legend. The piece was warmly received at Dresden on the 2nd of January 1843; but its success was by no means equal to that of Rienzi. Spohr, however, promptly discovered its merits, and produced it at Cassel some months later, with very favourable results.
On the 2nd of February 1843 Wagner was formally installed as Hofkapellmeister at the Dresden theatre, and he soon set to work on a new opera. He chose the legend of Tannhäuser, collecting his materials from the ancient Tannhäuser-Lied, the Volksbuch, Tieck's poetical Erzählung, Hoffmann's story of Der Sängerkrieg, and the medieval poem on Der Wartburgkrieg. This last-named legend introduces the incidental poem of “Loherangrin,” and so led Wagner to the study of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel, with great results later on. But for the present he confined himself to the subject in hand; and on the 19th of October 1845 he produced his Tannhäuser, with Schroeder Devrient, Johanna Wagner,[1] Tichatschek and Mitterwurzer in the principal parts. Notwithstanding this powerful cast, the success of the new work was not brilliant, for it carried still further the principles embodied in Der fliegende Holländer, and the time was not ripe for them. But Wagner boldly fought for them, and might have prevailed earlier had he not taken part in the political agitations of 1849, after which his position in Dresden became untenable. In fact, after the flight of the king and the subsequent suppression of the riots, a warrant was issued for his arrest; and he had barely time to escape to Weimar, where Liszt was at that moment engaged in preparing Tannhäuser for performance, before the storm burst upon him with alarming violence. In all haste Liszt procured a passport and escorted his guest as far as Eisenach. Wagner fled to Paris and thence to Zürich, where he lived in almost unbroken retirement until the autumn of 1859. During this period most of his prose works — including Oper und Drama, Über das Dirigieren, Das Judentum in der Musik — were given to the world.
The medieval studies which Wagner had begun for his work at the libretto of Tannhäuser bore rich fruit in his next opera Lohengrin, in which he also developed his principles on a larger scale and with a riper technique than hitherto. He had completed the work before he fled from Dresden, but could not get it produced. But he took the score with him to Paris, and, as he himself tells us, “when ill, miserable and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of my Lohengrin, which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I felt something like compassion that the music should never sound from off the death-pale paper. Two words I wrote to Liszt; his answer was the news that preparations were being made for the performance of the work, on the grandest scale that the limited means of Weimar would permit. Everything that care and accessories
- ↑ The composer's niece.
