 From 1838 to 1842, Helmholtz studied medicine under Müller. From 1842 to 1848, while working as an army surgeon in Potsdam, Helmholtz made many trips to Berlin to work in Gustav Magnus’s library. During these trips, Helmholtz stayed in contact with fellow students of Müller’s he had met while working in Müller’s laboratory, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Ernst Brücke. In 1845, Helmholtz joined the Berlin Physical Society, which was founded by du Bois-Reymond and also counted among its members Brücke and Werner von Siemens. Du Bois-Reymond founded the Physical Society to support experiment and to banish vitalism from scientific research. For more on Helmholtz’s early career and relationship with the Physical Society, see Sulloway 1992, 14ff and 65ff, and Cahan 2012. 