 After receiving his medical degree in 1842, Helmholtz worked as a military surgeon in Potsdam from 1843 to 1848. However, he took frequent trips to Berlin to work in Gustav Magnus’s lab, and to talk with Müller’s other former students and with Carl Ludwig. As mentioned above, in 1845 Helmholtz joined the Berlin Physical Society, which du Bois-Reymond and Brücke founded with the express intention of banishing vitalism. Also in 1845, Helmholtz took a five month leave from his work as a surgeon to take his qualifying exams. He used the time to work in the lab in Berlin, and continued to focus on the consequences of Weber’s and Liebig’s attacks on vitalism. 