© 2002 Journal of Clinical Pathology
EDITORIAL
Paul Langerhans
Paul Langerhans
Division of Cellular Immunology, The National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Jolles, National Institute for Medical Research, Division of Cellular Immunology, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK;
sjolles@nimr.mrc.ac.uk
A historical perspective
Keywords: Paul Langerhans; Langerhans cell; pancreas; macrophages
Paul Langerhans (born Berlin, Germany, 25 July 1847; died Funchal, Madeira, 20 July 1888), the son of a well known physician in Berlin, studied medicine at the Universities of Jena and Berlin, graduating in 1869. He made an outstanding contribution to medicine while still an undergraduate student, when he described a new epidermal cell in a paper entitled "On the nerves of the human skin".1 Using the gold chloride techniques of Julius Cohnheim, he described the dendritic, non-pigmentary cells in the epidermis that he regarded as intraepidermal receptors for extracutaneous signals of the nervous system. These cells were an enigma to dermatologists for over a century before the recognition of their immunological function and importance. The precision of his observation and description of the cells seems incredible when his drawings of 1868, made with the use of a primitive light microscope, are compared with the reproduction obtained today
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