Augustin Friedrich Walther

Augustin Friedrich Walther (1688 to 1746) was a German anatomist, botanist and physician from Wittenberg in the Electorate of Saxony, the son of the theologian Michael Walther the Younger. He took his philosophy degree at the University of Wittenberg in 1712 and his medical doctorate at Leipzig the following year. At the University of Leipzig he became professor of anatomy in 1728, of pathology in 1732 and of therapy in 1737, and served as the university's rector in 1737. From 1730 he directed the Leipzig Botanical Gardens, and in 1735 he published a botanical treatise describing thousands of plant species grown in his private garden. As a physician he contributed to the study of the muscles and the blood vessels, and several anatomical terms still carry his name, among them Walther's ducts, Walther's ganglion and Walther's plexus. The plant genus Waltheria was named in his honour.