Julius Friedrich Cohnheim

Julius Friedrich Cohnheim ( born July 20, 1839 in Demmin, † August 15 1884 in Leipzig ) was a German pathologist.

Cohnheim studied at the Universities of Würzburg, Marburg, Greifswald and Berlin. Since 1859 he was a member of the Corps Nassovia Würzburg. In Berlin, where he was a student of Rudolf Virchow, he received his doctorate in 1861. He discovered a gold chloride staining method, let the make the finest nerve endings visible. He had to study in the Institute by Carl Ludwig in Leipzig.

Cohnheim most outstanding work was the invention of intravital microscopy, with which he revealed the cellular mechanisms of inflammatory pathology. He described the migration of leukocytes through the vessel walls and thus refuted the thesis of his teacher Virchow that such Leukodiapedese not being done.

He was a professor at Kiel University, the University of Breslau, and in 1878 professor of pathology at the University of Leipzig. One of his assistants was Karl Weigert, the habilitated with him. Paul Ehrlich was a PhD student with him and his doctorate in 1878 with a thesis on aniline dyes in the histological staining.

In Kiel Cohnheim came over from Judaism to Protestantism. His son was the physiologist Otto Kestner ( 1873-1953 ).