Felix Victor Birch-Hirschfeld

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Felix Victor Birch-Hirschfeld (May 2, 1842 - November 19, 1899) was a German pathologist who was a native of Kluvensieck bei Rendsburg. In 1867 he received his medical doctorate from the University of Leipzig, where he studied under Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich (1815-1877) and Ernst Leberecht Wagner (1828-1888). In 1870 he became a prosector at the city hospital in Dresden, and in 1885 returned to Leipzig, where he succeeded Julius Cohnheim (1839-1884) as chair of pathological anatomy. One of his better known assistants was pathologist Christian Georg Schmorl (1861-1932).

Birch-Hirschfeld made important contributions in several facets of pathological medicine, and is particularly remembered for his work in bacteriology. In 1898 he described the unitary nature of nephroblastoma.

Associated eponym:
Birch-Hirschfeld stain: A stain that was formerly used for demonstrating amyloid, and consisted of a mixture of Bismarck brown and crystal violet.

[edit] Selected writings

Lehrbuch der Pathologischen Anatomie (Textbook of Pathological-Anatomy) Leipsig, 1877
Die Entstehung der Gelbsucht neugeborener Kinder( The emergence of jaundice in newborn children); Virchow's Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin, Berlin, LXXXVII.
The Skrophulose, In: Hugo Wilhelm von Ziemssen's Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie. Volume XIII; 2nd edition
Grundriss der Allgemeinen Pathologie (Outline of General Pathology} Leipsig, 1892
Über die Krankheiten der Leber und Milz (About the diseases of the liver and spleen). In: Carl Jakob Adolf Christian Gerhardt (1833-1902): Handbuch der Kinderkrankheiten. Volume IV, Tübingen, H. Laupp, 1877–1893).