In 1836, he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the gill arches of vertebrate embryos. Afterwards, he worked as an intern at the Charité, and from 1839 to 1843, served as an assistant and prosector at the University of Berlin.

In 1843 he attained the chair of anatomy at the Imperial University of Dorpat, and ten years later, succeeded Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold