Proof of the coagulability of muscle proteins.

Kühne described the neuromuscular end organ (“Kühne’s spindle”) and introduced the term “telolemma” for the outer covering of its sheath.

The best early description of proprioceptive receptors in muscles.

Isolation of trypsin.

Kühne was one of the people who introduced the term “enzyme”. He wrote, "Um Missverständnisse vorzubeugen und lästige Umschreibungen zu vermeiden schlägt Vortragender vor, die ungeformten oder nicht organisierten Fermente, deren Wirkung ohne Anwesenheit von Organismen und ausserhalb derselben erfolgen kann, als Enzyme zu bezeichnen..." (p.190). [In order to avoid misunderstandings and tiresome paraphrases, the lecturer proposes to call the unformed or unorganized ferments, whose action can take place without the presence of organisms and outside them, enzymes....]

Kühne was Professor of Physiology at Amsterdam and Heidelberg. Among his best work is his investigation of visual purple (rhodopsin) which he was first to extract from the retina. Several other papers by him on the same subject appear in the above volume.

Kühne and Chittenden isolated and named several new substances during their investigation of the products of digestion. See also the same journal, 1884, 20, 11-51; 1886, 22, 409-58; 1889, 25, 358-67.