Joseph von Gerlach (3 April 1820 – 17 December 1896) was a German professor of

anatomy 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 ...

at the University of Erlangen. He was a native of

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

. Gerlach was a pioneer of histological staining and anatomical micrography. In 1858, Gerlach introduced

carmine Carmine ()also called cochineal (when it is extracted from the Cochineal, cochineal insect), cochineal extract, crimson Lake pigment, lake, or carmine lake is a pigment of a bright-red color obtained from the aluminium coordination complex, compl ...

mixed with

gelatin Gelatin or gelatine () is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also be referred to as hydrolyzed collagen, coll ...

as a histological stain. Along with Camillo Golgi, he was a major proponent of the reticular theory that the brain's

nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...

consisted of processes of contiguous cells fused to create a massive meshed network. Gerlach summed up his theory by stating:

the finest divisions of the protoplasmic processes ultimately take part in the formation of the fine nerve fibre network which I consider to be an essential constituent of the gray matter of the spinal cord. The divisions are none other than the beginnings of this nerve fibre net. The cells of the gray matter are therefore doubly connected by means of the nerve process which becomes the axis fibre and through the finest branches of the protoplasmic processes which become a part of the fine nerve fibre net of the gray matter.

The reticular theory predominated until the 1890s when Ramon y Cajal brought forth his

neuron doctrine The neuron doctrine is the concept that the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells, a discovery due to decisive neuro-anatomical work of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and later presented by, among others, H. Waldeyer-Hartz. The term ' ...

of synaptic junctions, which in essence replaced the reticular theory. Gerlach was one of the first physicians to use photomicrography for medical research. In 1863, he published a handbook titled ''Die Photographie als Hilfsmittel mikroskopischer Forschung'' (Engl. "Photography as a tool in microscopic science") in which he discusses the practical and technological aspects of microscopic photography. The eponymous "Gerlach's valve" (''valvula processus vermiformis'') is named after him. This anatomical structure is a fold of membrane sometimes found at the opening of the

vermiform appendix The appendix (: appendices or appendixes; also vermiform appendix; cecal (or caecal, cæcal) appendix; vermix; or vermiform process) is a finger-like, blind-ended tube connected to the cecum, from which it develops in the embryo. The cecum ...

. In his article ''Ueber das Hautathmen''von Gerlach, J. (1851): ''Ueber das Hautathmen''. In: ''Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologie und wissenschaftliche Medicin''. pp. 431–455 (Engl. "On skin respiration") he was the first to show that human skin uses oxygen from ambient air.

References

Neurophilosophy.wordpress
On discovery of the neuron * This article incorporates information based on a translation of an equivalent article at the German Wikipedia.

External links

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Laboratory Manual of Human Anatomy
1820 births 1896 deaths German anatomists Physicians from Mainz Academic staff of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg German histologists People from Rhenish Hesse {{Germany-academic-bio-stub