Otto von Schrön

Otto von Schrön (1837 to 1917) was a German physician and epidemiologist, born in Hof in Bavaria, who spent most of his career in Italy as a professor of anatomy at the University of Naples. He studied medicine from 1855 at Erlangen and Munich, worked at Turin and Pavia, and in 1864 became professor of pathological anatomy at Naples. As a student he took part in Karl Thiersch's research showing the epithelial origin of cancer, and his histological studies of the skin led him to be the first to describe desmosomes and the tonofilament system, although he could not say what they did. He was named cholera commissioner in Naples for his work against cholera, typhoid and other infections, and later argued for a separate microbe of lung phthisis distinct from tuberculosis. He was ennobled by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1883.