Famous Scientist (Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle)

-: Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle :-

Jakob henle

 Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle (9 July 1809 – 13 May 1885) was a German physician, pathologist and anatomist. He is credited with the discovery of the loop of Henle in the kidney. His essay "On Miasma and Contagia" was an early argument for the germ theory of disease. He was an important figure in the development of modern medicine.

Henle was born in Fürth, Bavaria, to Jewish parents. After studying medicine at Heidelberg and at Bonn, where he took his doctor's degree in 1832, he became prosector in anatomy to Johannes Müller at Berlin. During the six years he spent in that position he published a large amount of work, including three anatomical monographs on new species of animals, and papers on the structure of the lymphatic system, the distribution of epithelium in the human body, the structure and development of the hair, the formation of mucus and pus, etc.

In 1840 he accepted the chair of anatomy at Zürich, and in 1844 he was called to Heidelberg, where he taught not only anatomy, but physiology and pathology. About this period he was engaged on his complete system of general anatomy, which formed the sixth volume of the new edition of Samuel Thomas von Sömmering's treatise, published at Leipzig between 1841 and 1844.

While at Heidelberg he published a zoological monograph on the sharks and rays, in conjunction with his master Müller, and in 1846 his famous Manual of Rational Pathology began to appear; this marked the beginning of a new era in pathological study, since in it physiology and pathology were treated, in Henle's own words, as branches of one science, and the facts of disease were systematically considered with reference to their physiological relations.


In 1852 he moved to Göttingen, whence he issued three years later the first instalment of his great Handbook of Systematic Human Anatomy, the last volume of which was not published until 1873.

This work was perhaps the most complete and comprehensive of its kind at that time, and it was remarkable not only for the fullness and minuteness of its anatomical descriptions but also for the number and excellence of the illustrations with which they elucidated minute anatomy of the blood vessels, serous membranes, kidney, eye, nails, central nervous system, etc. He discovered the loop of Henle and Henle's tubules, two anatomical structures in the kidney.