I'm no historian or philologist but believe the umlaut should be there.
The on-line Encyclopedia Britannica (oops sorry Encyclopaedia ;-)) leaves
out the umlaut on the name entries, but preserves it for Georg and Ludwig
elsewhere. I would say their usage is inconsistent, but I may be mixing up
the two sets of brothers. It also reports the following.
There were two Buchner brothers, Hans (1850-1902) and Eduard (1860-1917), from
Muenchen. Eduard was the biochemist and supposedly the discovery was an
individual one. He studied at Muenchen (a student of von Baeyer), and
taught at Kiel, Tuebingen, Berlin, Breslau, and Wuerzburg. I presume he is
the Buchner of the funnel? He died in the first World War. Hans was a
bacteriologist and immunologist, discovered gamma globulins and worked out
methods for cultivating anaerobes, and taught at Universitaet Muenchen
until he died. I would be surprised if the two didn't discuss their work,
but I'm not near a Dictionary of Scientific Biography just now. Could be a
very interesting story there.
There were two other Buechner brothers, Georg and Ludwig, from Darmstadt.
Both were members of the prior generation. Georg was a physician as well
as a revolutionary and dramatist, and died very early of typhoid fever in
Zuerich. His work includes _Woyzeck_ and _Danton's Tod_ (also _Lenz_ if
anyone reads prose). Ludwig was a physician and philosopher (of the
free-thinking, materialist type) and lived to a ripe old age despite
enraging the citizenry or at least the grand poohbahs.
Toni
