Friedrich Ludwig Kreysig

Friedrich Ludwig Kreysig was a German physician born in Eilenburg in 1770 who died in Dresden in 1839. He took his medical doctorate at the University of Leipzig in 1795, served as a substitute at the University of Wittenberg the following year, and became professor of anatomy and botany there in 1801. In 1803 he was appointed personal physician to Frederick Augustus, and from 1815 he trained Saxon military doctors in Dresden. For health reasons he left academic work in 1822 and retired to a private practice, from which he concentrated on botanical studies. He is largely known for his work on diseases of the heart: in 1815 he explained inflammatory processes associated with endocarditis, and the Heim-Kreysig sign, an in-drawing of the intercostal space synchronous with the cardiac systole in adherent pericardium, is named for him and the physician Ernst Ludwig Heim. In 1828 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.