August Wilhelm Henschel

August Wilhelm Eduard Theodor Henschel (1790 to 1856) was a German medical doctor and botanist from Breslau, best known for his works on the history of medicine and on the Schola Medica Salernitana. He was born in Breslau on 20 December 1790, the son of the physician Elias Henschel, and took his medical doctorate in 1813. He practised medicine in Breslau until 1816, when he became a lecturer in pathology at the university there, and in 1832 he became professor of anatomy, physiology and pathology. His first important work, on the sexuality of plants, appeared in 1820. His historical researches were published in the periodical Janus (Breslau, 1846 to 1849), and he also wrote on Aristotle as botanist, on rabies, on the history of medicine in Silesia and on reform of the medical doctorate. He died in Breslau on 24 July 1856.