Paul Langerhans

Paul Langerhans, who lived from 1847 to 1888, was a German pathologist, physiologist and biologist, born in Berlin as the son of a physician. While still a student in 1868 he stained human skin with gold chloride and identified the branched cells now called Langerhans cells, which he took to be nerve cells but which proved to be part of the immune system. In his 1869 doctoral thesis on the microscopic anatomy of the pancreas he described islands of clear cells, the islets of Langerhans, whose insulin-secreting role was recognised later. He became prosector in pathological anatomy and then professor at the University of Freiburg, contracted tuberculosis there in 1874, moved to Funchal on Madeira in 1875, studied marine invertebrates, practised as a physician and died of uraemia in 1888.