W A G W A G 313 bankruptcy laws. They must (except in the case of farm servants) be paid in money, and the payment must not be made in a public house (see PAYMENT). The recovery of wages by SEAMEN (q.v. ) is the subject of special legislation. In other cases statutory authority is given to county courts and courts of summary jurisdiction to deal with claims for wages. See especially the Employers and Workmen Act, 1875. The County Courts Acts enable an infant to sue in a county court for wages not exceeding 50 as though he were of age. Wages are as a rule privileged debts (see PRIVILEGE). By 33 and 34 Viet. c. 30 the wages of a servant, labourer, or work man cannot be attached by order of a court of record or inferior court. In Scotland wages are exempt from arrestment on process under the Small Debt Acts and in any case up to 20s. a week by 8 and 9 Viet. c. 39 and 33 and 34 Viet. c. 63. The English Bankruptcy Act, 1883, gives priority in the distribution of a bankrupt s estate to wages of clerks, servants, labourers, and workmen up to the extent of 50. The Scottish Bankruptcy Act, 1856 (as amended in 1875), is in similar terms. WAGNER, RUDOLPH (1805-1864), anatomist and physiologist, was born in June 1805 at Baireuth, where his father was a professor in the gymnasium. He began the study of medicine at Erlangen in 1820, and finished his curriculum in 1826 at Wiirzburg, where he had attached himself mostly to Schonlein in medicine and -to Heusinger in comparative anatomy. xided by a public stipendium, he spent a year or more studying in the Jarclin des Plantes, under the friendly eye of Cuvier, and in making zoological discoveries at Cagliari and other places on the Mediterranean. On his return he set up in medical practice at Augsburg, whither his father had been transferred ; but in a few months he found an opening for an academical career, on being appointed prosector at Erlangen. In 1832 he became full professor of zoology and comparative anatomy there, and held that office until 1840, when he was called to succeed Blumenbach at Gottingen. At the Hanoverian university he remained till his death in 1864, being much occupied with ad ministrative work as pro-rector for a number of years, and for nearly the whole of his residence troubled by ill- health (hereditary phthisis). In 1860 he gave over the physiological part of his teaching to a new chair, retaining the zoological, with which his career had begun. While at Frankfurt, on his way to examine the Neanderthal skull at Bonn, he was struck with paralysis, and died at Got tingen a few months later (May 1864) in his 59th year. Wagner s activity as a writer and worker was enormous, and his range extensive, most of his hard work having been done at Erlangen while his health was good. His graduation thesis was on the ambitious subject of "the historical development of epi demic and contagious diseases all over the world, with the laws of their diffusion," which showed the influence of Schonlein. His first treatise was Die Naturgeschichtc dcs Menschcn (in 2 vols., Kempten, 1831). Frequent journeys to the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the North Sea gave him abundant materials for re search on invertebrate anatomy and physiology, which he com municated first to the Munich academy of sciences, and republished in his Beitrdge zur verglcichcndcn Physiologic dcs Elides (Lcipsic, 1832-33, with additions in 1838). In 1834-35 he brought out a text-book on the subject of his chair (Lehrbuch dcr vcrglcichcnden Anatomic, Lcipsic), which recommended itself to students by its clear and concise style. A new edition of it appeared in 1843 under the title of LcJirbuch dcr Zootomic, of which only the vertebrate section was corrected by himself. The precision of his earlier work is evidenced by his Micrometric Measurements of the Elementary Parts of Man and Animals (Leipsic, 1834). His zoological labours may be said to conclude with the atlas Icones Zootomicas (Lcipsic, 1841). In 1835 he communicated to the Munich academy of sciences his researches on the physiology of generation and develop ment, including the famous discovery of the germinal vesicle of the human ovum. These were republished under the title Pro- dromus Historiie Gcncrationis Hominis atque Ammalium (Leipsic, 1836). As in zoology, his original researches in physiology were followed by a students text-book, Lehrbuch der spccicllen Physio logic (Leipsic, 1838), which soon reached a third edition, and was translated into French and English. This was supplemented by an atlas, Icones Physiologies (Leipsic, 1839). To the same period belongs a very interesting but now little known work on medicine proper, of a historical and synthetic scope, Grundriss der Encyklo- piidic und Methodologie der mcdicinischen IVisscnschaftcn nach (jeschichtlicher Ansicht (Erlangen, 1838), which was translated into Danish. About the same time he worked along with Will at a translation of Prichard s Natural History of Man, and edited various writings of Sommering, with a biography of that anatomist (1844), which he himself fancied most of all his writings. In 1843, after his removal to Gottingen, lie began his great Handivorterbuch der Physiologic, mit liucksicht auf physiologische Pathologic, and brought out the fifth (supplementary) volume in 1852; the only contribu tions of his own in it were on the sympathetic nerve, nerve-ganglia, and nerve-endings, and he modestly disclaims all merit except as being the organizer. While resident in Italy for his health from 1845 to 1847, he occupied himself with researches on the electrical organ of the torpedo and on nervous organization generally ; these he published in 1853-54 (Ncurologischc Untcrsuchungcn, Gottingen), and therewith his physiological period may be said to end. His next period was stormy and controversial. He entered the lists boldly against the materialism of " Stoff und Kraft," and avowed himself a Christian believer, whereupon he lost the countenance of a number of his old friends and pupils, and was unfeelingly told that he was suffering from an "atrophy of the brain." His quarrel with the materialists began with his oration at the Got- tingeu meeting of the Naturforscher-Versammlung in 1854 on " Menschenschb pfung und Seelensubstanz." This was followed by a series of "Physiological Letters" in the AVgcmcinc Zcitung, by an essay on "Glauben und Wissen," and by the most important piece of this series, "Der Kampf um die Seele" (Gottingen, 1857). Having come to the consideration of these philosophical problems late in life, he was at some disadvantage ; but he endeavoured to join as he best could in the current of contemporary German thought. He had an exact knowledge of classical German writings, more especially of Goethe s, and of the literature connected with him. In what may be called his fourth and last period, Wagner became anthropologist and archaeologist, occupied himself with the cabinet of skulls in the Go ttingeu museum collected by Blumenbach and with the excavation of prehistoric remains, corresponded actively with the anthropological societies of Paris and London, and organized, in co-operation with the veteran Von Baer, a success ful congress of anthropologists at Gottingen in 1861. His last writings were memoirs on the convolutions of the human brain, on the weight of brains, and on the brains of idiots (1860-62). See memoir by his eldest son in the Oottinyer gelehrte Anzeigen, " Naclmchtcn " for 3864. WAGNER, WILHELM RICHARD (1813-1883), dramatic composer and reformer of the musical drama, was born at Leipsic on May 22, 1813. In 1822 he was sent to the Kreuzschule at Dresden, where he did so well that, four years later, he translated the first 12 books of the Odyssey for amusement. In 1828 he was removed to the Nicolai- schule at Leipsic, where he was less successful. His first music-master was Gottlieb Mu ller, who thought him self- willed and eccentric ; and his first important composition was an " Overture in Bb," performed at the Leipsic theatre in 1830. In that year he matriculated at the university, and took lessons in composition from Theodor Weinlig, cantor at the Thomasschule. His " First Sym phony " was performed at the Gewandhaus concerts in 1833, and in the following year he was appointed con ductor of the opera at Magdeburg. The post was an unprofitable one, and Wagner s life at this period was very unsettled. He had composed an opera called Die Feen, adapted from Gozzi s La Donna Serpente, and another, Das Liebesverbot, founded on Shakespeare s Measure for Measure, but these were never performed, and for some considerable time the young composer found it difficult to obtain a hearing. In 1836 Wagner married Friiulein Wilhelmina Planer, an actress at the theatre at Konigsberg. He had accepted an engagement there as conductor, but, the lessee becoming bankrupt, the scheme was abandoned in favour of a better appointment at Riga. Accepting this, he remained actively employed until 1839, when he made his first visit to Paris, taking with him an unfinished opera, for which he had himself prepared a libretto, upon the lines of Lord Lytton s novel Rienzi. The venture proved a most unfortunate one. Wagner was unsuccessful in all his attempts to achieve popularity, and Rienzi, destined for the Grand Opera, was relentlessly rejected. He completed it, however, and in 1842 it was produced at the court theatre in Dresden, where, with Madame Schroeder Devrient and Herr Tichatschek
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