 He studied medicine at the Universities of Heidelberg, Marburg and Berlin, earning his medical doctorate in 1868.From 1872 to 1876 he worked at the Allerheiligen Hospital in Breslau, and in the meantime, served as an assistant to Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (1839–1884).From 1876 to 1882 he worked in the clinic of Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs at Berlin-Charité.