Auerbach, Leopold

German physician and biologist; born at Breslau April 27, 1828; died there Sept. 30, 1897. He studied in Breslau, Leipsic, and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 1849. The following year he began the practise of medicine in Breslau, and at the same time devoted himself, under the direction of Purkinje, to the study of histology and neuropathology. In 1863 he became docent at Breslau University, and remained in that position nine years, when he was promoted to the rank of assistant professor of general biology and histology, which he held for a quarter of a century.

His chief contribution to science is in the domain of cellular biology and histology, in which he attained considerable eminence. The results of his weighty studies on the cell are embodied in the "Organologische Studien" (parts i. and ii., Breslau, 1874), which treats of the structure, chemical constitution, and life-history of the cell-nucleus, and of the early stages of development of the fertilized ovum. Auerbach belongs to the class of modern biologists whose investigations not only paved the way toward the elucidation of important problems in biology, but raised wholly new questions regarding the mechanism of the development and rôle of the cell in hereditary transmission. His researches have materially advanced the knowledge of cell-life and cell-structure. According to Oscar Hertwig, Auerbach established satisfactorily that during cell-division the nucleus does not become dissolved, but becomes metamorphosed. Auerbach also made the important discovery that during conjugation the nuclei of oval eggs rotate so that the axis of the spindle coincides with the longest diameter of the egg. To his cytological researches must be added his investigations on the lymphatics of the intestines as well as his discovery of the cellular structure of the capillaries and his work on the physiology of muscle. Besides his "Organologische Studien,"which he published separately, Auerbach contributed a number of papers to medical and biological journals and to the transactions of several scientific societies. During half a century of active scientific work he published: "De Irritamentis Nervorum, Studia Critica," Berolini, 1849; "Ueber Psychische Thätigkeiten des Rückenmarks," in Günsberg's "Zeitschrift für Medicin," 1853, iv.; "Ueber die Erscheinung bei Oertlicher Muskelreizung," in "Abhandlungen der Schlesischen Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Cultur," 1861, pp. 291, 326; "Ueber Perkussion des Muskels," in "Zeitschrift für Rationelle Medicin," 1862; "Bau der Blutund Lymph-Capillaren," in "Centralblatt für die Medicinische Wissenschaft," 1865; "Lymphgefässe des Darmes," in Virchow's "Archiv," 1865, xxxiii.; "Ueber einen Plexus Mesentericus," Breslau, 1862; "De Ventriculo Carnoso Avium," 31 pp., Breslau, 1863; "Wahre Muskelhypertrophie," in Virchow's "Archiv," 1871; "Ueber den Einfluss Erhöhter Temperatur auf die Nervösen Central Organe," 28 pp., Heidelberg, 1880.

Auerbach is the author also of several scientific monographs which appeared in the "Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie," in Reichert-Du Bois' "Archiv"; in the "Verhandlungen der Berliner Medicinischen Gesellschaft"; in the "Verhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin"; and in Ferdinand Cohn's "Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen."

Bibliography:

  * Anton Bettelheim, Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog, 1898, ii. 35;
  * J. Pagel, Biographisches Lexicon der Hervorragenden Aerzte des 19ten Jahrhunderts, p. 59;
  * A. Wernich and A. Hirsch, Biographisches Lexicon Hervorragender Aerzte Aller Zeiten und Völker, i. 226;
  * Jos. Tyson, The Cell Doctrine, 2d ed., Philadelphia, 1876;
  * Ed. B. Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inheritance, 2d ed., pp. 5, 106, 127, 132, New York, 1900;
  * Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science, 1876, xvi. 131;
  * Hertwig-Campbell, The Cell, pp. 199, 218, 219.



S. W. S.