Verworn, Max Richard Konstantin

German physiologist Max Verworn was a main proponent of General physiology, a research field that emerged between cell research, evolutionism, and experimental physiology in the second half of the 19th century.

Verworn came from the family of a Prussian civil servant. He went to the humanistic Friedrich Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Berlin. In 1884, he took up his studies of medicine, botany and zoology, among others, with Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rudolph Virchow, and Franz Eilhard Schultze.

Directed by Schultze, Verworn was awarded a Ph.D. for his work on fresh-water bryozoans, a group of colonial invertebrates that possess exoskeletons. Shortly after, Verwarn moved to the University of Jena, to pursue his scientific studies with Ernst Haeckel, William Preyer and Wilhelm Biedermann. In 1889, he was awarded the degree of a medical doctor for his experimental work on the physiology of protozoa, i.e. unicellular organisms (infusoria, amoebae, ciliates, etc.). One year later, he passed the medical state examens. In 1891, Verworn received his habilitation in physiology. In 1895, he became extraordinary professor at Jena University. Six years later, he accepted a call to the Göttingen Physiology Institute, in 1910 he moved to Bonn University as a successor to Eduard Pflüger. In Göttingen and Bonn, Verworn attracted a large number of young scholars from within and without of Germany, among others, F. W. Fröhlich, Y. Ishikawa, H. Nagai, A. Pütter, J. Vészi, and H. Winterstein.