Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2022

JULIUS FRIEDRICH COHNHEIM (1839-1884) Untersuchungen ueber die embolischen Processe. August Hirschwald 1872 112 pp., [1] fold. leaf of plates. 25 cm.

A pupil of Virchow (see No. 1890 ff.), Cohnheim was the most prominent experimental pathologist in nineteenth-century Germany. While professor of pathology at Kiel and Breslau, he investigated the inflammatory process and demonstrated, in opposition to Virchow's theory, that pus is formed by the passage of white blood cells through the capillary walls. Cohnheim suffered from chronic gouty arthritis and died from its complications at age of forty-five. Nevertheless, he made many fundamental and lasting contributions to the understanding of a wide variety of pathological conditions in his short lifetime. He made important studies on sugar forming ferments, introduced the freezing method of sectioning tissue for microscopic study, utilized silver and gold salts for staining nerve endings, investigated the structure of striped muscle fibers, and made noteworthy pathological descriptions of his findings in tuberculosis of the choroid, sarcoma of the fibula, trichinosis, pseudoleukemia, and multiple exostosis. The present work resulted from his study of the circulatory system while he was professor of pathology at Kiel from 1868-1872. He describes the nature and formation of emboli throughout the circulatory system and most particularly in the terminal arteries. He also discusses the pathology of infarcts and abscesses and their role in the embolic process.

See Related Record(s): 1890

Cited references: Garrison-Morton 3010; Waller 2050

Gift of John Martin, M.D.