Franz Nissl

Franz Nissl (9 September 1860, Frankenthal – 11 August 1919, Munich) was a German psychiatrist and medical researcher. He was a noted neuropathologist.

Nissl was born in Frankenthal to Theodor Nissl and Maria Haas. Theodor taught Latin in a Catholic school and wanted Franz to become a priest. However Franz entered the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to study medicine. Later, he specialized in Psychiatry.

One of Nissl's university professors was Bernhard von Gudden. His assistant, Sigbert Josef Maria Ganser suggested that Nissl write an essay on the pathology of the cells of the cortex of the brain. When the medical faculty offered a competition for a prize in neurology in 1884, Nissl undertook the brain-cortex study. He used alcohol as a fixative and developed a staining technique that allowed the demonstration of several new nerve-cell constituents. Nissl won the prize, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the same topic in 1885.

Professor von Gudden was the judge in Nissl's college-essay competition, and he was so impressed with the study that he offered Nissl an assistantship at the Furstenried castle southwest of Munich, where one of his responsibilities would be to care for the mad Prince Otto. Nissl accepted, and remained in that post from 1885 until 1888. There was a small laboratory at the castle, which enabled Nissl to continue with his neuropathological research. In 1888 Nissl moved to the Institution Blankenheim. In 1889 he went to Frankfurt as second in position under Emil Sioli (1852–1922) at the Städtische Irrenanstalt. There he met neurologist Ludwig Edinger and neuropathologist Karl Weigert, who was developing a neuroglial stain. This work motivated Nissl to study mental and nervous diseases by relating them to observable changes in glial cells, blood elements, blood vessels and brain tissue in general.

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