Alexander Ecker

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Johann Alexander Ecker (10 July 1816 - 20 May 1887) was a German anthropologist and anatomist who was born in Freiburg im Breisgau. He studied medicine in Freiburg, where in 1840 became a prosector. In 1841 he was a lecturer in Heidelberg, where he was influenced by scientists and physicians such as Friedrich Tiedemann (1781-1861), Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm Bischoff (1807-1882) and Maximilian Joseph von Chelius (1794-1876). In 1844 he became a full professor at Basel, and in 1850 returned to Freiburg as a professor of physiology and comparative anatomy.

As an anthropologist, Ecker is remembered for his excavations of early burial sites in the Kaiserstuhl region of southwestern Germany. At the University of Freiburg he created a museum of anthropology and ethnography. With prehistorian Ludwig Lindenschmit the Elder (1809-1893), he founded the first German journal of anthropology, the Archiv für Anthropologie.

Ecker performed anatomical studies of the brain, and did important research regarding development of cerebral convolutions in the fetus. The eponymous "Ecker's fissure" is named after him, which is also known as the petro-occipital fissure.

[edit] References

• Alexander Ecker @ Who Named It