Friedrich Ernst Krukenberg

Friedrich Ernst Krukenberg was a German physician, born in Halle an der Saale on 1 April 1871 and dying on 20 February 1946. He studied in Halle and then at Marburg, where he worked under the pathologist Felix Jacob Marchand and the ophthalmologist Theodor Axenfeld. In Marchand's department he described a fibrosarcoma of the ovary, published in 1896, which became known as the Krukenberg tumor. His interest later turned to eye disease, and he returned to Halle to open a private practice. A second eponym, Krukenberg's spindle, names the vertical, spindle shaped deposit of melanin pigment in the deep layers of the cornea. He was the brother of the orthopedic surgeon Hermann Krukenberg and of the gynecologist Georg Krukenberg.