Anders Retzius

Anders Adolf Retzius ( born October 13, 1796 in Lund, † April 18, 1860 in Stockholm) was a Swedish anatomist and anthropologist.

Life

Even in his childhood was made by Retzius Anders Jahan Retzius his father (1742-1821) with the natural history, especially related to zoology. While studying in Lund and Copenhagen, he was under the influence of the anatomist Arvid Henrik Florman (1761-1840), who introduced him to the methods of preparation.

In 1816, Retzius spent a year studying in Copenhagen and made ​​friends with the anatomist Ludwig Levin Jacobson ( 1783-1843 ), the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted ( 1777-1851 ) and the zoologist Johan Christopher Hagemann Reinhardt ( 1776-1845 ). After his return to Lund he finished his medical studies there. In 1817 he received the medicine licentiat and in 1818 appointed kirurgie magister. In 1819 he submitted his doctoral thesis on the anatomy of the cartilaginous fish ( dogfish ) before ( Observationes in anatomiam chondropterygium praecipue Squali et rajae generum ).

Retzius served as a military doctor, first in Skåne, later in Jämtland. In 1823, four years after receiving his doctorate, was Retzius Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Veterinary Institute in Stockholm, where he founded an Anatomical Museum. Since 1824 he was a teacher of anatomy at the Karolinska Institute, 1824 Deputy Professor (1830 inspector at the same time ), which he headed from 1840 as professor of anatomy until his death on 18 April 1860.

Anders Retzius married in 1835; his second wife, the mother of Magnus Gustaf Retzius (1842-1919), was Emilia Sofia Wahlberg, a sister of the botanist and entomologist Peter Fredrik Wahlberg ( 1800-1877 ). Anders Adolf Retzius was a member of many scientific societies at home and abroad.

Work

Contributions to the anatomy

Retzius is considered a pioneer of comparative anatomy in Sweden. In addition, include his work on the direct relationship between spinal and sympathetic nervous system to the most famous achievements of the human anatomy. Already during his studies for his dissertation he described the internal organs of cartilaginous fish. Later, in 1822 and 1824, he published papers on the hagfish ( Myxinoida ). Together with Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858), he led studies on the morphology of the lancelet by ( Amphioxiformes ). The results presented Müller 1841 the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

1833, during a congress in Wroclaw, led Evangelista Purkinje January ( 1787-1869 ) him in the technique using the microscope, a, thereby Retzius for new areas of research, particularly on the histological structure and development of teeth of different species, showed. Further research can be found in the macroscopic anatomy, especially skeletal muscle as well as the circulatory and nervous systems, as well as in the topographic anatomy and physical anthropology.

Most of his works were published in the Archives of Anatomy and Physiology, in notes from the field of nature and medicine as well as in the archives of Anatomy, Physiology and Scientific Medicine.

Contributions to Anthropology

One characteristic of Medicine of the Biedermeier period between 1830 and 1850, whose spirit has shaped Retzius, is the Erfahrungssüchtigkeit medicine still " vorexperimentellen ". Preference is given to the descriptive method of comparing the anatomy. One seeks empirical laws to find and secure, if possible, from numerically. This also does Retzius in his anthropological studies by he performs the step of a then still " pseudo-scientific " anthropology to quantify their statements.

Contributions to craniometry

Retzius developed classifications of various physical characteristics of different ethnic groups in Europe. His material won from prehistoric graves in Scandinavia and Retzius through journeys that took him the many variations of the skull forms of European ethnicities in mind. He developed in 1840, a measurement method for the detection of such features. With his " Zephalo index ", he proved that universal two differente skull types exist: the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic of.

In this way it was possible Retzius, different characteristics of different body characteristics to quantify and to find a mathematical expression. From his work, the physical anthropology emerged as the new science. The prehistoric skull, the Retzius has measured, can be found in the museum he founded in the normal and pathological anatomy in Stockholm.

Member of scientific societies

Eponyms

• Retzius body
• Retzius Strip
• Retzius gyrus, gyrus intralimbicus
• Retzius ( cavity ), retropubic space Retzius space, spatium retropubicum.
• Retzius'sche veins: anastomoses of small veins in the bowel wall and mesentery of the portal vein and the inferior vena cava. ( Portocaval anastomoses ).

Works (selection)

• About the skull forms the northern residents. Archive for anatomy, physiology and scientific medicine (Berlin): 84-129, 1845.
• Remarks about the internal structure of the teeth, with special reference to the occurring in the tooth bone Röhrenbau. Archive for anatomy, physiology and scientific medicine, Berlin 1837, p 539