Paul Langerhans (1847–1888): A Centenary Tribute

The Accuracy of Point-of-Care Equipment for Glucose Measurement in Screening for Dysglycemia in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease

“…In 1869, Paul Langerhans reported on two cellular systems in the pancreas and several years later one of them was named the "islets of Langerhans". 5 In 1889, Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski demonstrated that dogs in which the pancreas had been removed developed diabetes. 6 This discovery was important for the future experiments by a quartet of researchers at the University of Toronto, Frederick Banting, Charles Best, JJR Macleod and James Collip, who, in 1921, extracted pancreatic gland serum from dogs that could reverse hyperglycaemia.…”

Exploring eponyms in a corpus of medical articles. Origins and meanings

“…He was employed as prosector in pathology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, and was later promoted to the position of chair of pathology, but was forced to quit the academic career due to the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. Moving to the coast of Madeira, he continued working and studied intervertabrates and produced four papers with drawings of his own (24)(25)(26)(27)(28).…”

The Beginnings of Pancreatology as a Field of Experimental and Clinical Medicine

“…In 1869, Paul Langerhans, who studied medicine under Emile Du Bois-Reymond and was both a student and a friend of Rodolf Virchow, presented and published a dissertation entitled “Beitrage zur mikroskopischen Anatomie der Bauchspeicheldrüse” (contributions to microscopic anatomy of the pancreas) [ 8 ]. In this work he not only described the existence of acinar cells in the pancreas but also noted the presence of small, polygonal cells in the parenchyma of the pancreas; these cells had a round nucleus and no nucleolus.…”

“…They stained differently than cells in their surrounding and appeared in pairs or small clusters that formed islets in the sea of acinar cells. Langerhans also noted that the islets formed by the clusters of these cells were characterized by denser innervation than the rest of the pancreas [ 8 ].…”

“…Yet the function of these islets remained unknown. In 1893, Gustave-Édouard Laguesse, a French histologist and pathologist, the first to refer to pancreatic islets as the islets of Langerhans, suggested that they might serve an endocrine function [ 8 ].…”