He received his doctorate from the University of Munich in 1843, where from 1848 to 1854 he served as prosector of pathological anatomy. Afterwards he became a professor of surgery at the Universities of Erlangen (from 1854) and Leipzig (from 1867). He was a medical surgeon in the First War of Schleswig under Louis Stromeyer (1804–1876), and a medical consultant during the Franco-Prussian War.
