Albrecht von Haller was born in Bern, and educated at the universities of Tübingen and Leyden. After this he practised medicine for eight years, before being offered a professorship at the university of Göttingen, which he accepted. After seventeen years in that job he returned home.

There he concentrated even more fully on his studies. He published several texts that were influential for some time afterward. His most important physiological theories were related to different types of tissue. He realised that there must be some essential difference between nerve tissue, which carries impulses, and muscle tissue which contracts in response to these signals. His most famous work, first published in 1747, was Primae Lineae Physiologiae, written while still teaching at Göttingen.

Aside from his primary interest of physiology he also studied poetry, botany, Latin, Greek, surgery and general medicine.