Leopold Auerbach (April 27, 1828-September 30, 1897 belongs to world famous figures in medicine, who were born, spent most of their lifetimes and died in Wrocław (Breslau). Auerbach reported for the first time in literature about existence of plexus myentericus (plexus Auerbachi) including ganglion cells between circular and longitudinal layers of tunica muscularis propria in intestinal wall, in 1862. With his publication on muscular hypertrophy, dated on 1871, he provided ground for another eponym: "Friedreich-Auerbach disease", that refers to facial hemihypertrophy. He was raised in Jewish family, which lived for generations in Wrocław. His elaborative scientific work was his struggle for human dignity and safe social status, which was shared with many other members of the community at the time of Jewish emancipation thorough the whole XIXth century in Germany. The great value of Leopold Auerbach for the Wrocław University -his Alma Mater -, which was founded by an Austrian Emperor Leopold I, is even metaphorically coded by the fact, that "AL" are not only initials for Academia Leopoldina but also curiously for the name and surname of this brilliant scientist, who led rather a calm and unspectacular life. This paper is the last one from the series of our biographical papers, in which we focused on his output in the field of vascular system, morphology of invertebrates and -in only short one page-long note until now -on the topic of nervous system, so we decided to present a full text report on the latter but the most famous area of his activity.
Plexus myentericus Auerbachi and Friedreich-Auerbach disease are widely used eponyms that are associated with eminent morphologist Leopold Auerbach (1828-1897), whose life is relatively little known due to limited access to his German-written XIX century biographies and lack of English biographical papers about him in world literature. Hereby we focused on hardly known achievements of Leopold Auerbach in the field of gametogenesis and embryology of invertebrates. Auerbach did not only confirm unicellularity of amoebas, which was previously discovered. He described cleavage of fertilized eggs of Ascaris nigrovenosa and Strongylus auricularis. Moreover, his accurate descriptions on germination of Paracentrotus lividus inspired a recognized German zoologist Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922). Auerbach also profoundly studied an encystation of Oxytricha pellionella on morphological grounds. His descriptions referred to karyokinesis as well as oogenesis and spermatogenesis to discover conjugations of spermatozoa in pairs in the epididymis of a beetle, Dytiscus marginalis. He also distinguished two types of spermatozoa of Paludina vivipara: the hairlike-shaped (German: haarförmigen) and the worm-shaped (wurmförmigen) ones of these fresh water (river) snails. His studies on germination (including cell division during cleavage of nematodes) inspired the others, e.g., Oscar Hertwig, and following generations to conclude that "Auerbach deserves the credit for having provided the first scientific foundation for modern teaching on fertilization" according to professor of anatomy Gustav Born (1851-1900) at Breslau University.
President of prewar Lvov and Polish Republic on Exile, associate professor StanisławOstrowski was a dermatologist with a keen interest in dermatopathology. This study was based on original resources, which -mainly reports of his own authorship -were focused on dermatopathology. Stanisław Ostrowski provided excellent description of naevus epitheliomatosus sebaceus Wolters-Friboes both in Polish and German to be cited after decades in renowned handbooks of dermatopahtology published by Springer Verlag. His scientific output also includes meticulous presentation of Fox-Fordyce disease (apocrine miliaria) as well as gold-induced skin changes to Polish readership. Thus, this study documents dermatopahtological achievements of Stanisław Ostrowski -the unifying statesman of society of Lvov and Polish emigration in London.
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