He studied physics at the University of Graz, where he received his doctorate in 1872. After doctorate, he worked at the grammar school in Klagenfurt, then in Trieste, and in 1875 he came to the Imperial and Royal Naval Academy in Rijeka for professors of physics and mechanics and leader physics laboratory; From 1880 he has also run a meteorological station. Rijeka Academy then was one of the tophigher education and research institutions of Austria-Hungary, with carefully selected staff and excellently equipped. At the request of E. Mach, who has not managed to experimentally prove his theory shockwave, Salcher in 1886 with the help of collaborators Sandor Riegler, who was then a professor of chemistry and physics at the Rijeka Higher Commercial School, conceived the experiment and the world's first spent ultrafast Photographic recording of a phenomenon accompanying a fly grenade flight through the air. The recording was done by the method invented in 1859-64. Developed by August Toepler, Salcher's professor from Graz. A short exposure was achieved using an electric spark, and a total of 80 shots were recorded. The results of that experiment Salcher, in collaboration with E. Macho, published in 1887 in the paper Fotografsko bilježenje pojava u zraku uzrokovanih projektilima. According to his idea, Salcher continued his experiments, and in 1887, in collaboration with John Whitehead, in the torpedo factory in Rijeka, he photographed the superficial occurrences of air leakage from high pressure tanks. Today, it is considered that these experiments were the starting point for the development of modern testing in aerodynamic tunnels. One month after the first Röntgen trial in 1896, Salcher demonstrated the use of X-ray in Rijeka's first public lecture in Rijeka, and soon after that, the X-ray device began to be used at the Rijeka City Hospital. Salcher was one of the most prominent figures in Rijeka's scientific and cultural life, a lecturer and author of textbooks, scientific and popular articles, an active member of the Rijeka Natural Science Club and a prominent photojournalist.
