Albin Hoffmann, who had meanwhile accepted a call to the chair in Leipzig, his health soon declined and tuberculosis began to affect his larynx and the kidneys.
On his last trip to Germany, everyone was aware that it was a farewell. After his return to Madeira he suffered from unbearable pain, and at least every 12 h he injected morphine. He gave up his practice. On July 20, 1887, Prof. Paul Langerhans died in the Villa Lambert – 5 days before his 41st birthday. Langerhans had already chosen his grave site, the English cemetery in Funchal (Fig. 9). In his handbook about Madeira he wrote about this cemetery as being a true cemetery, “lost in the world and quiet, in which it must rest well.” Paul Langerhans chose the inscription for his marble gravestone himself: “He also did not want to live, nor see the light of the shining sun” (Fig. 10). It is a quote from the Lament of Menelaus in the fourth song of the Odyssey.
Fig. 10. The plate on the tomb of Prof. Paul Langerhans (photo Dr. V. Jörgens).
It was not until 1973 that the grave was rediscovered, and in 1975 the German diabetologist Dr. G. Wolff suggested that the German Diabetes Society place a commemorative plaque there. Frightened by two plane accidents, no German diabetologist dared to make the trip to Madeira. So, the plaque travelled by mail to Madeira and was installed by the German consul. In 1978, the German Diabetes Society decided to award a Paul Langerhans medal annually, with the first recipient being Prof. E.R. Froesch from Zurich.
In 1988, dermatologists also commemorated the eponym of the Langerhans cells. On March 18 that year, a commemorative plaque of the German Dermatological Society was placed on the grave. A Langerhans bronze bust, which is located in front of Virchow’s institute in the Charité in Berlin, was donated by EASD in 2012 (Fig. 11).
Fig. 11. Langerhans bronze bust in front of Prof. Virchow’s institute in the Charité in Berlin, donated by EASD 2012 (photo Dr. V. Jörgens).
The Portuguese Diabetes Society frequently commemorates Paul Langerhans, especially at conferences in Madeira, and recently decided to publish the biography by Prof. Björn M. Hausen in Portuguese [8]. The original edition is out of print [9].
References
1Morrison H: Contribution to the Microscopic Anatomy of the Pancreas. By Paul Langerhans (Berlin, 1869). Reprint of the German original with an English translation and an introductory essay. Bull Inst of the Hist Med 1937;5:3.
2Langerhans P: Über die Nerven der menschlichen Haut. Arch Path Anat 1868;44:325.
3Laguesse P: Sur la formation des ilôts de Langerhans dans le pancreas. CR Soc Biol 1893;5:819–820.
4Langerhans P: Lepra und Leproserien in Jerusalem. Arch Path Anat 1870;50:453–455.
5Langerhans P: Über die heutigen Bewohner des Heiligen Landes. Arch Anthropol 1873;6:39–58, 201–212.
6Langerhans P: Über einige kanarische Anneliden. Nova Acta Kaiserl. Deutsch Akadem Naturforsch 1881;42:95–124.
7Langerhans P: Handbuch für Madeira. Berlin, Hirschwald, 1885.
8Hausen BM: As “ilhas” de Paul Langerhans, una biograpfia em fotos e documentos. Lisbon, Edicoes Colibri, 2015.
9Hausen BM: Die Inseln des Paul Langerhans, eine Biographie in Bildern und Dokumenten. Vienna, Überreuter Wissenschaft, 1988.
10Langerhans P: Beiträge zur mikroskopischen Anatomie der Bauchspeicheldrüse; med. dissertation, Berlin, 1869. Printed by G. Lange, 1869.
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 36–39 (DOI: 10.1159/000506557)
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Apollinaire Bouchardat Invented Patient Education
Viktor Jörgens
Executive Director EASD/EFSD 1987–2015, Düsseldorf, Germany
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Abstract
Apollinaire Bouchardat was the leading clinical diabetologist of the 19th century. He invented patient education for people with type 2 diabetes. He told patients to lose weight until the urine tests for glucose they performed at home became negative. Today’s treatment of obese people with type 2 diabetes does not differ very much from Bouchardat’s approach. He summarized his observations in the monography De la glucosurie ou diabète sucré. Bouchardat also wrote a very popular textbook on hygiene, over 1,000 pages long, in which he summarized all his views on a healthy life, from nutrition to the frequency of sexual intercourse, garnished with many amusing remarks based on his political, very socially oriented, and anticlerical opinions.
© 2020 S. Karger AG, Basel
Apollinaire Bouchardat (1806–1886; Fig. 1) was one of the outstanding clinical diabetologists of the 19th century. His father was away with Napoleon’s army when he was born in L’Isle-sur-Serein near Avallon in Burgundy on July 23, 1806. Today, two commemorative plates decorate his very modest birthplace in the Rue Bouchardat in front of the mayor’s house of L’Isle-sur-Serein. A few steps from this birthplace, the diabetologist travelling in Burgundy should enjoy the excellent local cuisine of the restaurant “Le pot d’étain” as Bouchardat enjoyed the culinary and enological treasures of Burgundy during his whole life.
Bouchardat’s father abandoned his wife and she had to ask his uncle in Avallon to take care of the boy. He worked in his uncle’s pharmacy before leaving for Paris at the age of 19 years. Like Claude Bernard he dreamt of a career as a writer. He wrote a drama which
