WEIGERT

WEIGERT, Karl (1845-1904), one of the greatest German pathologists. After graduating from the medical faculty in Breslau in 1868, he worked for two years as an assistant to the famous anatomist Professor Waldeyer, and from 1870 he took the position of assistant to the greatest pathologist of that time, Cohnheim, with whom he remained his closest collaborator until the latter's death in 1884. In 1885, W. was elected to the position of professor of pathological anatomy and director of the Senckenberg Pathological Institute in Frankfurt am Main, a position he held until his death.

Of the 98 works published by W., the most significant should be considered his classical research on miliary tuberculosis, in which he first established the dependence of miliary tuberculosis on the rupture of the tuberculous focus through the vein wall, as well as his works on the histogenesis of giant cells in tuberculosis, and the pathological anatomy of smallpox, croup, and diphtheria. In his research on tissue death, W. first put forward the concept of so-called coagulation necrosis. However, the name of W. is most famous in the field of microscopic technique, as he was the first to discover and develop a number of methods for selective staining of fibrin, myelin nerve fibers, neuroglia, elastic tissue, etc.—methods that created an entire era in the study of normal and pathological histology of tissues, especially the nervous system.