Gustav Schwalbe

Gustav Schwalbe (1844-1916)

Gustav Albert Schwalbe, M.D. (August 1, 1844 – April 23, 1916) was a German anatomist and anthropologist from Quedlinburg.

He was educated at the universities of Berlin, Zurich, and Bonn (M.D. 1866), he became in 1870 privat-docent at the University of Halle, in 1871 privatdozent and prosector at the University of Freiburg in Baden, in 1872 assistant professor at the University of Leipzig, and then professor of anatomy successively at the universities of Jena (1873), Königsberg (1881), and Strassburg (1883) — at that time a German university, Alsace having been annexed to Germany. There he died.

Known for his anthropological research of primitive man, Schwalbe considered the Neanderthal to be a direct ancestor of modern humans. He was the author of an influential treatise on Java Man, it being a recent discovery by Eugène Dubois (1858-1940).

In 1869 Schwalbe injected Berlin-blue dye into the subarachnoid space of a dog, and was the first to demonstrate that the major pathways to absorb cerebrospinal fluid were lymphatic pathways. The subarachnoid or subdural spaces between the internal and external sheaths of the optic nerve are now referred to as "Schwalbe's spaces"; also called the intervaginal spaces of optic nerve (spatia intervaginalia nervi optici). His name is lent to several other anatomical structures, including "Schwalbe's nucleus" or the vestibular nucleus; "Schwalbe's ring", which is a circular ridge consisting of collagenous fibers surrounding the outer margin of Descemet's membrane; and "Schwalbe's line", an anatomical line located on the posterior surface of the eye's cornea.

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