Hoffmann was the first to perceive pathology as an aspect of physiology. His Fundamenta is an outstanding treatise on physiology. English translation with introduction by Lester S. King, London, 1971.

Recamier (1829) is credited with coining the term metastasis with respect to cancer. It is evident that Hoffmann and his pupil Sontag used the term nearly 100 years earlier in this general thesis on disease. They did not apply it specifically to cancer though they mentioned tumors twice in the dissertation, on pp. 12 and 14. The title of Sontag's thesis may be translated as Inaugural medical dissertation on metastasis or the altered seat of disease. How one disease often turns into another.

Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.

Classic description of chlorosis. Lange accurately diagnosed this condition, but it was left to Hoffmann to separate it as a definite entity. Hoffmann published his contribution to this subject in the thesis of his student Gottfried Emmrich.

Hoffmann of Halle was the most important of the Iatromechanists. He believed an ether-like “vital fluid” to be present in the nervous system and to act upon the muscles, giving them “tonus”.