Langerhans en zijn eilandjes

Paul Langerhans (1847-1888) was born in Berlin, where his father was a well-known physician. As a medical student in his home town he worked in Virchow’s laboratory and discovered two new cell types by means of a staining technique with gold chloride. The first consisted of skin cells with long sprigs, which he provisionally regarded as nerve cells; it would not be until 1973 that the antigen-presenting function of these ‘dendritic cells’ was identified. The second and currently best known finding was in the pancreas, where he saw clumps of small, round cells that were apparently unconnected with the cells for the production of digestive enzymes. Their endocrine function was identified in 1893, five years after Langerhans’ premature death in Madeira. He had moved to the island after tuberculosis forced him to break off his academic career as a pathologist.

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: J.P. Gijselhart works part-time for the Association of the Dutch Journal of Medicine (Vereniging Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde), Amsterdam.