Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen

Recklinghausen was born in Gütersloh, Germany, in 1833.

He was the son of Friedrich Christoph von Recklinghausen and Friederike Charlotte Zumwinkel. His father was an elementary school teacher and a sexton. His mother died shortly after his birth in 1833. The Recklinghausens were a patrician family who put multiple councilors and mayors in their positions. He went to the elementary school where his father taught in Gütersloh. He then attended high school at Ratsgymnasium, Bielefeld.

Starting in 1852, Recklinghausen studied medicine at the Universities of Bonn, Würzburg and Berlin, earning his doctorate at the latter institution in 1855.

Afterwards he studied pathological anatomy under Rudolf Virchow, the father of modern pathology, and obtained his doctorate with Virchow as his advisor. He subsequently undertook an educational journey to Vienna, Rome, and Paris. From 1858 to 1864, Recklinghausen was an assistant at the Pathological Institute in Berlin. In 1864 he became the Professor of Pathological Anatomy at Königsberg before moving to Würzburg 6 months later. He remained a professor at Würzburg until 1872, when he was appointed Professor of General Pathology and Pathological Anatomy at Strasbourg until 1906.

Henceforth, he remained as a professor emeritus, continuing to teach and conduct research until his death in 1910.

In 1882 he released a monograph that reviewed previous literature done by Robert William Smith 33 years prior, added two new cases, and characterized the tumors of neurofibromatosis type I or NF-1 as neurofibromas, consisting of an intense commingling of nerve cells and fibrous tissue.[5] NF-1 is sometimes referred to as “von Recklinghausen syndrome”.

He gave an account of Spina bifida in 1886, improving upon the work of Fulpius in 1641.

In 1889 he coined the term “haemochromatosis”, and was the first to provide the link between haemochromatosis and iron accumulation in body tissue. Recklinghausen published his findings in a treatise titled Hämochromatose (1889).

While Gerhard Engel first described the skeletal disorder Osteitis fibrosa cystica, in 1891 Recklinghausen was the first to describe it systematically, and the condition became known as “von Recklinghausen's disease”.

He is credited with establishing a method for staining lines of cell junctions with silver, a procedure that led to Julius Friedrich Cohnheim’s research on leukocyte migration and inflammation. In a monograph published posthumously in 1910, he coined the term oncosis (derived from ónkos, meaning swelling). This term is sometimes used to describe Ischemic cell death.

In addition, he is credited with performing important studies on the heart and circulation.