1850-1924

German Biologist and Embryologist

Wilhelm Roux, the founder of experimental embryology, was primarily interested in the factors that governed the development of the embryo. Convinced that descriptive and comparative studies of embryonic development were inadequate, Roux demanded a new approach and saw himself as the founder of a new discipline, which he called developmental mechanics. To promote the advancement of this nascent field, he established a new journal called Archive for Developmental Mechanics of Organisms in 1894.

Roux, the son of a fencing master, was born in Jena. His life's work was profoundly influenced by two eminent teaches—Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) at the University of Jena and Alexander Wilhelm Goette at Strassburg. Roux became a professor at Innsbruck, but soon moved to the University of Halle where he remained from 1895 to 1921. Throughout his life he remained interested in the great problems he took up as a...