Pathologists

Nigerian-American physician, forensic-pathologist and neuropathologist Bennet Omalu is most-noted for discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players. He was serving at Allegheny County coroner's office in Pittsburgh at that time. He presently serves as President and Medical Director of Bennet Omalu Pathology, chief medical examiner for San Joaquin County, and as professor at the University of California, Davis.

Rudolf Virchow was a German physician, pathologist, anthropologist, biologist, prehistorian, editor, writer, and politician. Nicknamed the Pope of medicine by his colleagues, Virchow is credited with founding the field of social medicine. He is also widely regarded as the father of modern pathology.  Rudolf Virchow was the first person to name diseases, such as thrombosis, leukemia, ochronosis, embolism, and chordoma.

British surgeon Joseph Lister was a pioneer of antiseptic medicine usage and made a huge contribution to the development of preventive medicine for bacterial infection. His achievements have been honored by many, such as the makers of Listerine antiseptic and mouthwash, who named their product after him.

Howard Florey was an Australian pathologist and pharmacologist. He is best remembered for his role in the formation of penicillin, for which he shared the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Alexander Fleming and Ernst Chain in the year 1945. Florey is credited with carrying out the first clinical trial of penicillin at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1941.

Polish-American medical researcher Albert Bruce Sabin is best-remembered for developing oral polio vaccine which is easier to give and more effective than earlier polio vaccine. His vaccine has remained instrumental in the ongoing effort of eradicating polio. Other vaccines developed by Sabin include the ones for encephalitis and dengue. He served as President of Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

Pathologist Thomas Stoltz Harvey was the man who conducted an autopsy on Albert Einstein. It is believed the Princeton Hospital employee later stole Einstein’s brain without his family’s permission and even lost his job for it. He kept parts of the brain with him for 43 years.

Nobel Prize-winning cytologist and physician Camillo Golgi is remembered for his contribution to the study of the central nervous system. He revolutionized medical science with his staining technique and discoveries such as the Golgi cell, the Golgi tendon organ, and the Golgi apparatus, apart from his research on malaria.

Charles Scott Sherrington was an English histologist, neurophysiologist, pathologist, and bacteriologist. In 1932, Sherrington and Edgar Douglas Adrian were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of the functions of neurons. Charles Scott Sherrington's exposition of synaptic communication between neurons helped understand the central nervous system. He was also the recipient of the prestigious Royal Medal.

Nobel Prize-winning German pathologist and bacteriologist Gerhard Domagk is best remembered for his pathbreaking discovery of Prontosil, the first sulfonamide antibiotic. The Nazis, however, didn’t allow him to accept the Nobel Prize immediately and detained him briefly instead. He had also served as a soldier in World War I.

Robin Warren is an Australian pathologist best known for re-discovering the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. Along with Barry J. Marshall, Warren proved that Helicobacter pylori causes stomach ulcers. In 2005, he won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Medicine, which he shared with Marshall. Their Nobel Prize-winning work became the subject of a documentary titled The Winner's Guide to the Nobel Prize.

Francis Peyton Rous was an American pathologist best remembered for his works in blood transfusion, oncoviruses, and physiology of digestion. In 1966, Rous was honored with the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in 1911 that led to the understanding of how viruses influence the progression of certain types of cancer.

German pathologist and anatomist Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle is best remembered for his discovery of two of the most significant parts of the kidney, the loop of Henle and Henle's tubules. His Allgemeine Anatomie, or General Anatomy, was the first systematic written work on histology.

Johannes Fibiger was a Danish physician who also worked at the University of Copenhagen as a professor of anatomical pathology. He is best remembered for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1926. He won the prize for discovering a worm, which he named Spiroptera carcinoma. The roundworm was later correctly named Gongylonema neoplasticum.

The man who penned the first published study of pathology in English, Matthew Baillie was an Oxford-educated physician who was later also named a Fellow of The Royal Society. He also inherited the estates of his physician uncle William Hunter and taught at his medical school for a while.

Sophia Getzowa had lost her mother at 8. A prominent Zionist, she studied medicine and became known for her research on solid cell nests and for being the first woman to teach at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was also engaged to Chaim Weizmann, who later became Israel’s first president.

One of the first specialists in cytopathology, Elizabeth Stern is noted for her work on progression of a healthy cell to a cancerous state. She became interested in cervical cancer while serving as professor of epidemiology at UCLA and began extensive research on the subject, eventually helping to establish that cervical cancer can be successfully treated by prophylactic measures.

Pathologist Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs, considered the founder of experimental pathology, had initially been an optician and had also taught at several universities. His contributions include studies in kidney and liver diseases and research on multiple sclerosis. He also released the first German book on nephrology.