He studied at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Vienna, and Heidelberg, and began a practice in Karlsruhe in 1842.

He is credited with the construction of an early "hemotachometer", an apparatus for monitoring the velocity of blood flow.

In 1854, he created a device called a sphygmograph,[1] a mechanism consisting of weights and levers used to estimate blood pressure, and considered to be a forerunner of the modern sphygmomanometer.

One of his better known written works was a treatise on the arterial pulse, titled Die Lehre vom Arterienpuls in gesunden und kranken Zuständen.

However, the 1868 book does much more than report this "law" and contains extensive discussions of different methods used to measure duration perception, as well as different sorts of errors that can occur.