Richard Altmann

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Richard Altmann (12 March 1852 – 8 December 1900) was a German pathologist and histologist from Deutsch Eylau in the Province of Prussia.

Altmann studied medicine in Greifswald, Königsberg, Marburg, and Giessen, obtaining a doctorate at the University of Giessen in 1877. He then worked as a prosector at Leipzig, and in 1887 became an anatomy professor (extraordinary). He died in Hubertusburg in 1900 through a nervous disorder.

He improved fixation methods, for instance his solution of potassium dichromate and osmium textroxide.[1] Using that with a new staining technique applying acid-fuchsin contrasted by picric acid amid delicate heating, he observed filaments in the nearly all cell types, developed from granules.[1][2] He named the granules bioblasts, and explained them as the elementary living units, having metabolic and genetic autonomy, in his 1890 book Die Elementarorganismen (The Elementary Organism).[3] His explanation drew much skepticism and harsh criticism.[4] Altmann's granules are now believed to be mitochondria.[5][6]

He is credited with coining the term nucleic acid, replacing Friedrich Miescher's term nuclein when it was demonstrated that nuclein was acidic.

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 William Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms: The Creation of Modern Cell Biology (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp 80–83.
  2. ↑ Erik Nordenskiöld, The History of Biology (New York: Knopf, 1935), pp 538–39.
  3. ↑ Brian O'Rourke, "From bioblasts to mitochondria: Ever expanding roles of mitochondria in cell physiology", Frontiers in Physiology, 2010 Jun 15;1:7.
  4. ↑ Edmund B Wilson, The Cell in Development and Inheritance, 2nd edn (New York: Macmillan Co, 1900), pp 289–91.
  5. ↑ "'s_granules Altmann's granules", Merriam–Webster, Accessed online: 30 Aug 2013.
  6. ↑ Jan Sapp, "Mitochondria and their host", in W F Martin & M Müller, eds, Origin of Mitochondria and Hydrogenosomes (Heidelberg: Springer, 2007), pp 57–59.

Books

  • Über Nucleinsäuren. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie. Physiologische Abteilung. Leipzig, 1889.
  • Zur Geschichte der Zelltheorien (The History of Cell Theories) . Ein Vortrag. Leipzig, 1889.
  • Die Elementarorganismen, 1890.

References

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