Following the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution and their implementation by Napoleonic

conquests, the first half of the nineteenth century saw, especially in the German states, the growing emancipation of the Jews. The struggle for equality was accompanied by an increasing number of young Jews seeking secular education in the gymnasia and universities, achieving Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical high positions in culture, science, and medicine. In the history of Medicine, the mid-nineteenth century is marked by the emergence of methodological experimental physiology, led by figures like Magendie in France and Müller in Germany who incorporated the achievements in physics and chemistry into physiology and employed instrumentation enabling the measurement and recording of the physiological data. The planned controlled experiment became the cornerstone of the budding scientific medicine. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical These processes are personified

by the eminent experimental physiologist, Moritz Schiff (1823–1896). His scientific achievements were hailed all over Europe and the US, but he was forced to live in exile, first because of his involvement in the German liberal movement and, later, because of his dedication to science clashing with prejudice and ignorance tainted by chauvinism. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical In recent decades, new facets of his activities have been revealed. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the renewed interest by reporting on a rather ignored line of research that only nowadays is being appreciated as one of the roots of modern functional imaging of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the brain. GERMANY Moritz Schiff was born on January 28, 1823 to a prosperous Jewish merchant family in Frankfurt-am-Main. After matriculating from a German gymnasium and failing in commerce, he became an apprentice in the prestigious Schankenbergische Institute of Natural

History and, in 1844, received his M.D. in Göttingen after studying physiology with the clinical trial famous Johan Müller in Berlin. His love of the natural sciences took him to Paris where he studied under one of the founders of modern physiology, François Magendie (1783–1855), Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and with his pupils, ADP ribosylation factor François A. Longet (1811–1871) and Carlo Matteucci (1811–1868). Concomitantly, he worked at the Museum of Zoology in the famous Jardin des Plantes. In the summer of 1845, he returned to Frankfurt and, in 1846, obtained the position of the director of the ornithological part of the Institute where he had worked in his youth. Schiff classified the birds of South America and collaborated with Prince Charles Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, who was a renowned authority in ornithology. In 1848, Schiff was swept by the liberal movement and joined the Baden army as a physician in a failed attempt to liberalize Germany. He was barely saved from execution and resumed his work at the Institute. The following years were very productive.