Friedrich Christian Rosenthal

Friedrich Christian Rosenthal (1780 to 1829) was a German anatomist, a native of Greifswald. He earned his doctorate at the University of Jena and opened a medical practice in Greifswald in 1804, where he worked closely with the naturalist Karl Asmund Rudolphi and gained his habilitation in 1807 with a treatise on olfaction. In 1810 he accepted an appointment at the University of Berlin, and in 1820 he returned to Greifswald as professor of physiology and anatomy. He died in 1829 at the age of 49 from the consequences of tuberculosis. He is remembered today through two anatomical terms that carry his name, Rosenthal canal, the spiral canal of the cochlea in the bony labyrinth of the inner ear, and Rosenthal vein, the cerebral basal vein that joins the internal cerebral veins to form the vein of Galen.