Jakob Ernst Arthur Böttcher (13 July 1831 – 10 August 1889) was a

Baltic German Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly declined ...

pathologist Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in th ...

and

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...

who was a native of

Bauska Bauska () is a town in Bauska Municipality, in the Zemgale region of southern Latvia. Bauska is located from the Latvian capital Riga, 62 km (38.5 mi) from Jelgava and from the Lithuanian border on the busy European route E67. The to ...

, in what was then the

Courland Governorate The Courland Governorate, also known as the Province of Courland, Governorate of Kurland (german: Kurländisches Gouvernement; russian: Курля́ндская губерния, translit=Kurljándskaja gubernija; lv, Kurzemes guberņa; lt, K ...

(present-day

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

). He worked primarily within the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

. In 1856 he earned his medical doctorate from the

University of Dorpat The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...

(present-day University of Tartu in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, an ...

) with a dissertation on the nerve supply to the

inner ear The inner ear (internal ear, auris interna) is the innermost part of the vertebrate ear. In vertebrates, the inner ear is mainly responsible for sound detection and balance. In mammals, it consists of the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity in th ...

cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory o ...

. He furthered his studies with journeys to Germany, France and Austria, and in 1862 he became a full professor of general pathology and

pathological anatomy Anatomical pathology (''Commonwealth'') or Anatomic pathology (''U.S.'') is a medical specialty that is concerned with the diagnosis of disease based on the macroscopic, microscopic, biochemical, immunologic and molecular examination o ...

Dorpat Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia after the Northern European country's political and financial capital, Tallinn. Tartu has a population of 91,407 (as of 2021). It is southeast of Tallinn and 245 kilometres (152 miles) northeast of ...

. From 1871 to 1877 he was editor of the magazine ''Dorpater Medicinische Zeitschrift''. Böttcher is largely known for his anatomical investigations of the

, particularly studies involving the structure of the reticular lamina and

nerve fiber An axon (from Greek ἄξων ''áxōn'', axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, that typically conducts electrical impulses known as action p ...

s of the

organ of Corti The organ of Corti, or spiral organ, is the receptor organ for hearing and is located in the mammalian cochlea. This highly varied strip of epithelial cells allows for transduction of auditory signals into nerve impulses' action potential. Trans ...

. Today his name is associated with the eponymous " Bottcher cells", which are cells of the

basilar membrane The basilar membrane is a stiff structural element within the cochlea of the inner ear which separates two liquid-filled tubes that run along the coil of the cochlea, the scala media and the scala tympani. The basilar membrane moves up and down ...

of the

. Other anatomical terms that contain his name are: * Böttcher's canal: Known today as the ''ductus utriculosaccularis'' or as the utriculo- saccular duct. This duct connects the utricle with the

endolymphatic duct From the posterior wall of the saccule a canal, the endolymphatic duct, is given off; this duct is joined by the ductus utriculosaccularis, and then passes along the aquaeductus vestibuli and ends in a blind pouch (endolymphatic sac) on the poster ...

a short distance from the

saccule The saccule is a bed of sensory cells in the inner ear. It translates head movements into neural impulses for the brain to interpret. The saccule detects linear accelerations and head tilts in the vertical plane. When the head moves verticall ...

. * Böttcher's ganglion:

Ganglion A ganglion is a group of neuron cell bodies in the peripheral nervous system. In the somatic nervous system this includes dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal ganglia among a few others. In the autonomic nervous system there are both sympathe ...

on the

cochlear nerve The cochlear nerve (also auditory nerve or acoustic nerve) is one of two parts of the vestibulocochlear nerve, a cranial nerve present in amniotes, the other part being the vestibular nerve. The cochlear nerve carries auditory sensory information ...

in the

internal auditory meatus The internal auditory meatus (also meatus acusticus internus, internal acoustic meatus, internal auditory canal, or internal acoustic canal) is a canal within the petrous part of the temporal bone of the skull between the posterior cranial fossa ...

. * Böttcher's space: Also known as the

endolymphatic sac From the posterior wall of the saccule a canal, the endolymphatic duct, is given off; this duct is joined by the utriculosaccular duct, and then passes along the vestibular aqueduct and ends in a blind pouch, the endolymphatic sac, on the poster ...

; the blind pouch at the end of the

. * Charcot-Böttcher filaments: Spindle-shaped crystalloids found in human

Sertoli cells Sertoli cells are a type of sustentacular "nurse" cell found in human testes which contribute to the process of spermatogenesis (the production of sperm) as a structural component of the seminiferous tubules. They are activated by follicle-stimula ...

. They measure 10 to 25 µm in length. Named in conjunction with

neurologist Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...

Jean-Martin Charcot Jean-Martin Charcot (; 29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology. He worked on hypnosis and hysteria, in particular with his hysteria patient Louise Augustine Gleizes. Charcot is know ...

(1825-1893).

Selected publications

* ''Observationes microscopicae de ratione qua nervus cochleae mammalium terminator'', 1856. * ''Mittheilung über einen bester noch unbekannten Blasenwurm'', 1862. * ''Ueber die Entwickelung und Bau des Gehörlabyrinths nach Untersuchungen an Säugethieren'', 1869. * ''Kritische Bemerkungen und neue Beiträge zur Litteratur des Gehörlabyrinths'', 1872. * ''Neue Untersuchungen über die rothen Blutkörperchen'', 1876.

References

Pagel: Biographical Dictionary
(translated biography)
Sketches of Otohistory
by Jochen Schacht and Joseph E. Hawkins

Sources

*Thomas Lathrop Stedman. Stedman's Medical Eponyms. 2005. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Page 91 (definition of eponyms)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bottcher, Arthur 1831 births 1889 deaths Baltic-German people People from Bauska Pathologists from the Russian Empire Anatomists from the Russian Empire Academic staff of the University of Tartu University of Tartu alumni People from Courland Governorate

See also

Selected publications

References

Sources

External links