Bernard’s work, all researchers agreed that too much glucose is produced by the liver in diabetes. However, the authors were still much divided on how this happens – Claude Bernard was also reluctant to provide a clear-cut explanation. He never treated patients, and in his Leçons sur le diabète there is no proposal of a treatment for diabetes. Nevertheless, Claude Bernard’s contribution to the understanding of metabolism was one of the most outstanding contributions to diabetes research in medical history.
What Is the Legacy of a Genius?
Claude Bernard did not only study metabolism. His research into neurology fills two volumes. He also studied the effects of curare and carbon monoxide, even the sensibility of plants. All his scientific work is discussed in detail in the outstanding biography by Mirko D. Grmek [9]. Gremek reports an anecdote about the question “what remains of the ideas of a researcher?” In a conversation between Pasteur and Claude Bernard, Pasteur said that he had the impression that his research had not been well received by the medical community. Claude Bernard replied: “It is quite the opposite. The physicians have already learned a lot from your research on infections. A cannula was introduced into my bladder by two colleagues, an older one and a younger one. Both of them washed their hands – the younger one before and the older one after the operation.”
The First National Funeral for a Scientist
On February 10, 1878 Claude Bernard died in his apartment at Rue des Ecoles 40 in Paris. His death was probably as a result of renal failure due to pyelonephritis. The following day, by virtue of a proposal by Gambetta, the parliament decided to organize a national funeral at the expense of the state. On Wednesday February 12, 1878, his obituary filled half of the title page of the Le Figaro newspaper. On February 16, an impressive funeral cortege accompanied Claude Bernard to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where his two sons were also buried.
Immediately after his death, his friends and students collected money for a bronze monument in front of the Collège de France. Sadly, the bronze monument was melted during the Nazi occupation, but was replaced after the war with a stone one. Another monument can be found in the Claude Bernard University in Lyon. The city of Villefranche-sur-Saône debated the proposal of creating a monument but finally decided against it – it was mentioned that he, Claude Bernard, had been politically close to the Emperor and that he had been divorced. The European Association for the Study of Diabetes honored Claude Bernard by inaugurating a medal and lecture in his name. The first two winners of this lecture were subsequently awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
References
1Bernard C: De l’origine du sucre dans l’économie animale. Arch Gén Méd 1848;18:303–319.
2Sonolet J: The Claude Bernard Museum. Fondation Marcel Mérieux. Paris, Industrie Graphiques, 1984.
3Bernard C: Nouvelles recherches expérimentales sur les phénomènes glycogéniques du foie. Mém Soc Biol 1867;9:1–7.
4Bernard C: Chiens rendus diabétiques. C R Soc Biol 1849;1:60.
5Bernard C: Influence du systhème nerveux sur la production du sucre dans l’économie animale. Bull Soc Phil 1849:49–51.
6Bernard C: Introduction à l’Étude de la Médecine Expérimentale. Paris, Baillière, 1865.
7Bernard C: Leçons sur les Phénomènes de la Vie Communs aux Animaux et aux Végétaux. Paris, Baillière, 1878, 1879.
8Bernard C: Leçons sur le diabète et la glycogènese animale. Paris, Baillière, 1877.
9Grmek MD: Le legs de Claude Bernard. Paris, Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1997.
Dr. Viktor Jörgens
Fuhlrottweg 15
DE–40591 Düsseldorf (Germany)
Jörgens V, Porta M (eds): Unveiling Diabetes - Historical Milestones in Diabetology. Front Diabetes. Basel, Karger, 2020, vol 29, pp 25–35 (DOI: 10.1159/000506551)
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Paul Langerhans: The Man Who Discovered the Islets
Viktor Jörgens
Executive Director EASD/EFSD 1987–2015, Düsseldorf, Germany
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Abstract
The name Paul Langerhans will, forever, be associated with two discoveries that he made: the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas and the cells he discovered in the skin. Working in the laboratory of Prof. Rudolf Virchow, in Berlin, Langerhans characterized for the first time the islets of Langerhans in his 1869 medical thesis. Yet, what most diabetologists tend to ignore, is the fact that he was also the first to describe the “dendritic cells” in the suprabasal region of the epidermis. These cells were first identified and reported by Paul Langerhans in 1896. These Langerhans cells in the skin received much attention in allergy research from 1973 onwards. They play an important role in the pathophysiology of immune reactions, not only in the skin. Thus, Paul Langerhans, during his last year of undergraduate studies in the laboratory of Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, made his name immortal in medical history not once, but twice.
© 2020 S. Karger AG, Basel
Prof. Björn M. Hausen, who was a renowned expert in allergology and published an outstanding biography on Paul Langerhans, died in 2017. This article is based upon his work with the permission of his widow.
Paul Wilhelm Heinrich Langerhans was born in Berlin on July 25, 1847. His father, Dr. med. Paul August Herrmann Langerhans (1820–1909), had been practicing medicine in Berlin since 1842. His mother was Anna Louise Caroline Langerhans, born Keibel (1824–1853). Dr. H. Morrison, who researched Langerhans for an introductory essay [1], believed her to be a cousin of the Histologist Franz Keibel (1861–1929). Björn Hausen discovered that their great-grandfathers were brothers. The Langerhans family lived in Berlin at Köpenickerstrasse 111 in the eastern part of the city – the house was destroyed in World War II and was subsequently replaced by an East German prefabricated building.
On October 5, 1853, Anna Langerhans died of tuberculosis. She was 29 years old at the time of her passing and Paul was just 6 years old. In later years, despite the discoveries of Robert Koch proving otherwise, Paul continued to believe that tuberculosis was a hereditary condition because himself, his mother, and his brother each became victims
