Ludwig Büchner
Büchner was born at Darmstadt, Germany, on 29 March 1824. From 1842 to 1848 he studied physics, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, philosophy and medicine at the University of Giessen. In 1852 he became lecturer in medicine at the University of Tübingen, where he published his great work Kraft und Stoff: Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien (Force and Matter: Empiricophilosophical Studies, 1855). In this work, he sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of matter and force. The extreme materialism of this work excited so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his post at Tübingen. He retired to Darmstadt, where he practiced as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological and physiological magazines.