Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar: The pathologist Heinrich (Henri) Stilling (1853–1911) in the history of adrenals

Abstract

Heinrich Stilling, the third son of the German anatomist Benedict Stilling (1810–1879), received his medical doctorate from the Georg-August-Universität of Göttingen in 1876 under Franz König (1832–1910). After several periods of training in Kiel with Johannes von Esmarch (1823–1908) and in Strassburg with Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen (1833–1910) and Adolf Kussmaul (1822–1902), in 1890 Stilling became the first chair of Pathological Anatomy, General Pathology and Bacteriology at the newly founded medical school in Lausanne. In 1891, he founded there the Institute of Pathological Anatomy, which he directed until his death in 1911. Although he made numerous important contributions to the scientific literature on pathological anatomy, his main scientific interest was the study of the adrenal glands. In this field, he made significant contributions to the histology and physiology of the gland in various animal species. He first demonstrated the compensatory hypertrophy of adrenals after extirpation of the glands. Furthermore, he first coined the name ‘chromophile’ for the cells brown stained by potassium dichromate. Unfortunately, these achievements are not always adequately remembered in current literature.