Franz Kaspar Hesselbach (27 January 1759 – 24 July 1816) was a German

surgeon In medicine, a surgeon is a medical doctor who performs surgery. Even though there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon is a licensed physician and received the same medical training as physicians before spec ...

and

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal 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 scien ...

who was a native of

Hammelburg Hammelburg is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It sits in the district of Bad Kissingen, in Lower Franconia. It lies on the river Franconian Saale, 25 km west of Schweinfurt. Hammelburg is the oldest winegrowing town (''Weinstadt'') in Francon ...

. He was a pupil, and later

Prosector A prosector is a person with the special task of preparing a dissection for demonstration, usually in medical schools or hospitals. Many important anatomists began their careers as prosectors working for lecturers and demonstrators in anatomy and ...

under

Carl Caspar von Siebold Carl Caspar von Siebold (4 November 1736 – 3 April 1807) was a German surgeon and obstetrician who was a native of Nideggen in the Duchy of Jülich. From 1760 to 1763 he studied medicine in Würzburg, and afterwards furthered his medical educat ...

(1736–1807) at

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

. Later Hesselbach was a lecturer at Würzburg, where one of his students was

Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck (5 December 1776 – 24 January 1851) was a German surgeon, ophthalmologist and anatomist who was a native of Horneburg. Biography Langenbeck studied medicine at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, and in 180 ...

(1776–1851). His son, Adam Kaspar Hesselbach (1788–1856) was also a surgeon. As a surgeon, Hesselbach is best known for his work with

hernia A hernia (: hernias or herniae, from Latin, meaning 'rupture') is the abnormal exit of tissue or an organ (anatomy), organ, such as the bowel, through the wall of the cavity in which it normally resides. The term is also used for the normal Devel ...

operations. He was the first to describe a handful of anatomical structures, such as the

cribriform fascia The cribriform fascia (also known as the fascia cribrosa, or Hesselbach's fascia) is the portion of the superficial layer of the deep fascia of leg which extends between the sartorius muscle, adductor longus muscle, and inguinal ligament to form ...

(Hesselbach's fascia),

interfoveolar ligament Lateral to the conjoint tendon, previously known as the inguinal aponeurotic falx, there is a ligamentous band originating from the lower margin of the transversalis fascia and extending down in front of the inferior epigastric artery In human ...

(Hesselbach's ligament) and the

inguinal triangle In human anatomy, the inguinal triangle is a region of the abdominal wall. It is also known by the eponym Hesselbach's triangle, after Franz Kaspar Hesselbach. Structure It is defined by the following structures: * Medial border: Lateral margin ...

(Hesselbach's triangle).

Selected writings

* ''Anatomisch-chirurgische Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Leistenbrüche''. Würzburg, Baumgärtner, 1806. (Hesselbach's fascia, ligament and triangle described). * ''Neueste anatomisch-pathologische Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und das Fortschreiten der Leisten- und Schenkelbrüche''. Würzburg, Staheliano, 1814. (Latest anatomic-pathologic investigations involving the origin and progress of inguinal and femoral ruptures).

References

*
''Franz Kaspar Hesselbach''
@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

1759 births 1816 deaths Surgeons from the Holy Roman Empire People from Bad Kissingen (district) German surgeons 18th-century German physicians 18th-century surgeons {{Germany-med-bio-stub