Karl August von Bergen

Karl August von Bergen (1704 to 1759) was a German anatomist and botanist who spent his working life at the Viadrina University in Frankfurt on the Oder. The son of an anatomy professor, he studied medicine at his home university from 1727, then under Herman Boerhaave and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus at Leiden and also in Paris and Strasbourg, before receiving his doctorate in 1732. He later held the chair of anatomy and botany, a post that also made him responsible for the university botanical garden. In 1732 he demonstrated how cellular membranes are distributed throughout animals, showing that they enclose every part of the body and form the basis of each organ, work that Albrecht von Haller took up and extended in 1757. His best known book is Flora Francofurtana of 1750, and he also published an oration on the rhinoceros in 1746. The plant genus Bergenia was named in his honour by Conrad Moench in 1794. This entry follows the lead of the source article.