Born in
's-Hertogenbosch,
Netherlands, Moleschott studied at
Heidelberg University, where he obtained his PhD in 1845, and began the practice of medicine in
Utrecht in 1845, but soon moved back to Heidelberg University, where he lectured on
physiology starting in 1847. The university reprimanded Moleschott for various controversial statements made in his lectures, leading to his resignation in 1854. Next to
Carl Vogt and
Ludwig Büchner, Moleschott stood in the center of the public debates about
materialism in Germany in the 1850s.[4]
He taught as a professor of physiology at
Zürich (1856), at
Turin (1861), and at
Rome (1879), where he died.
Writings
Moleschott explained the origin and condition of animals by the working of physical causes. He was an
atheist which led to his removal from teaching at the Heidelberg University.[5] His characteristic formulae were "no thought without
phosphorus" and "the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes
bile." His major works are:
Lehre der Nahrungsmittel. Für das Volk (Erlangen, 1850; 3rd edition, Erlangen, 1858)
Physiologie der Nahrungsmittel (1850; second edition, 1859)
Physiologie des Stoffwechsels in Pflanzen und Thieren (1851)
Der Kreislauf des Lebens (1852; fifth edition, 1887)
Untersuchungen zur Naturlehre des Menschen und der tiere (1856–93), continued after his death by Colosanti and Fubini
Sulla vita umana (1861–67), a collection of essays
Physiologisches Skizzenbuch (1861)
Consigli e conforti nei tempi di colera (1864; third edition, 1884)
Sull' influenza della luce mista e cromatica nell' esalazione di acido carbonico per l'organismo animale (1879), with Fubini
Kleine Schriften (1880–87), collected essays and addresses
^Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 165: "During the 1850s German ... scientists conducted a controversy known ... as the materialistic controversy. It was specially associated with the names of Vogt, Moleschott and Büchner" and p. 173: "Frenchmen were surprised to see Büchner and Vogt. ... [T]he French were surprised at German materialism".
^John Powell, Derek W. Blakeley, Tessa Powell (eds.), Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1914, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, "Pavlov, Ivan Petrovich (1849–1936)."
^Harmke Kamminga (1995). The Science and Culture of Nutrition, 1840-1940. Rodopi. p. 31.
ISBN978-90-5183-818-3. Moleschott's atheism is much more prominent, for example, and he declares absurd Liebig's opinion that insights into the laws of nature inevitably lead us to the notion of a Being knowable only through revelation.
Andreas Daum, Wissenschaftspopularisierung im 19. Jahrhundert: Bürgerliche Kultur, naturwissenschaftliche Bildung und die deutsche Öffentlichkeit, 1848–1914. Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998,
ISBN3-486-56337-8, 2nd. edition 2002, including a short biography of Moleschott.
Fredrick Gregory: Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany, Springer, 1977,
ISBN90-277-0760-X