Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow

Ernst von Fleischl-Marxow, also Ernst Fleischl von Marxow (5 August 1846, Vienna – 22 October 1891, Vienna), son of Karl Fleischl Edlem von Marxow and his wife Ida (née Marx) was an Austrian physiologist and physician who became known for his important investigations on the electrical activity of nerves and the brain. He was also a creative inventor of new devices which were widely adopted in clinical medicine and physiological research.

Marxow studied medicine in the University of Vienna, Austria. He started his scientific career as a research assistant in the laboratory of Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke (1819–1892), and later as an assistant, in the same University, to the eminent pathologist Carl von Rokitansky (1804–1878). Unfortunately, an accident while he was dissecting a cadaver injured his thumb, which became infected and had to be amputated, interrupting his activities in anatomical pathology. Thus, he had to turn to Physiology, and he came back to von Brücke's laboratory in Vienna after studying for a year with Carl Ludwig (1816–1895), another famous physiologist at the University of Leipzig, Germany, obtaining his doctoral degree in Medicine in 1874.