Franz Kaspar Hesselbach

Franz Kaspar Hesselbach was a German surgeon and anatomist, born in Hammelburg on 27 January 1759 and died on 24 July 1816. He trained at Würzburg as a pupil of Carl Caspar von Siebold, served there as his prosector, and afterwards lectured at the university, where one of his students was Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck. His son, Adam Kaspar Hesselbach, also became a surgeon. Hesselbach is best remembered for his work on hernia operations. He was the first to describe several anatomical structures, among them the cribriform fascia, the interfoveolar ligament and the inguinal triangle, which still carry his name as Hesselbach's fascia, Hesselbach's ligament and Hesselbach's triangle. His principal writings, published at Würzburg in 1806 and 1814, set out anatomical and pathological investigations into the origin and progress of inguinal and femoral hernias.