Richard Altmann

Richard Altmann was a German pathologist and histologist from Deutsch Eylau in the Province of Prussia, born in 1852 and died in 1900. He studied medicine at Greifswald, Königsberg, Marburg and Giessen, took his doctorate at Giessen in 1877, worked as a prosector at Leipzig and in 1887 became an extraordinary professor of anatomy. He improved tissue fixation methods and, with a new staining technique, observed filaments and granules in nearly all cell types, naming the granules bioblasts and presenting them as the elementary living units in his 1890 book Die Elementarorganismen. His explanation met harsh criticism, but Altmann granules are now believed to be mitochondria. He is also credited with coining the term nucleic acid in 1889, replacing Friedrich Miescher term nuclein once nuclein was shown to be acidic.