Charles-Philippe Robin was a French anatomist, biologist

Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

, and histologist who was born in Jasseron

Jasseron

Jasseron is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France.It is located east of Bourg en Bresse.-Population:...

, département Ain

Ain

Ain is a department named after the Ain River on the eastern edge of France. Being part of the region Rhône-Alpes and bordered by the rivers Saône and Rhône, the department of Ain enjoys a privileged geographic situation...

.

He studied medicine in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and while still a student took a scientific journey with Hermann Lebert

Hermann Lebert

Hermann Lebert was a German physician.He studied medicine and the natural sciences first in Berlin and later in Zurich under Johann Lukas Schönlein. After he received his medical doctorate , he traveled throughout Switzerland, studying botany...

 to Normandy

Normandy

Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...

 and the Channel Islands

Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...

, where they collected specimens for the Musée Orfila. In 1846 he received his medical doctorate, and at different stages of his career he was a professor of natural history, anatomy, and histology. He was a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine

Académie Nationale de Médecine

Académie Nationale de Médecine, or National Academy of Medicine was created in 1820 by king Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the institution was known as the Académie Royale de Médecine...

 (1858) and Academy of Science

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 (1866). In 1873 he was appointed director of the marine zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 laboratory at Concarneau

Concarneau

Concarneau is a commune in the Finistère department of Brittany in north-western France.The town has two distinct areas: the modern town on the mainland and the medieval Ville Close, a walled town on a long island in the centre of the harbour. Historically, the old town was a centre of shipbuilding...

.

Robin's contributions to medical science were many and varied. He was a pioneer in the study of microscopic and cellular biology, and along with Pierre François Olive Rayer

Pierre François Olive Rayer

Pierre François Olive Rayer was a French physician who was a native of Saint Sylvain. He made important contributions in the fields of pathological anatomy, physiology, comparative pathology and parasitology....

, Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was a French physiologist. He was the first to define the term milieu intérieur . Historian of science I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science"...

, and Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard

Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard

Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard FRS , also known as Charles Edward, was a Mauritian physiologist and neurologist who, in 1850, became the first to describe what is now called Brown-Séquard syndrome.-Early life:...

, he established the Société de biologie in 1848. He was the first physician to describe the species Candida albicans

Candida albicans

Candida albicans is a diploid fungus that grows both as yeast and filamentous cells and a causal agent of opportunistic oral and genital infections in humans. Systemic fungal infections including those by C...

(a diploid fungus), and he discovered the role of osteoclast

Osteoclast

An osteoclast is a type of bone cell that removes bone tissue by removing its mineralized matrix and breaking up the organic bone . This process is known as bone resorption. Osteoclasts were discovered by Kolliker in 1873...

s in bone formation. He also contributed new information on the structure of glial cell

Glial cell

Glial cells, sometimes called neuroglia or simply glia , are non-neuronal cells that maintain homeostasis, form myelin, and provide support and protection for neurons in the brain, and for neurons in other parts of the nervous system such as in the autonomous nervous system...

s and the electrical organs of Rajidae (electric skates).

Robin was a prolific writer, creating over 300 publications during his lifetime. With Émile Littré

Émile Littré

Émile Maximilien Paul Littré was a French lexicographer and philosopher, best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française, commonly called "The Littré".-Biography:Émile Littré was born in Paris...

 he published a revision of Pierre-Hubert Nysten

Pierre-Hubert Nysten

Pierre-Hubert Nysten was a Belgian-French physiologist and pediatrician who was a native of Liège. He studied medicine in Paris, and subsequently became a professor at the École de Médecine in Paris....

’s Dictionnaire de médecine, de chirurgie, etc. The eponymous Virchow-Robin spaces

Virchow-Robin spaces

Virchow-Robin spaces are perivascular, fluid-filled canals that surround perforating arteries and veins in the parenchyma of the brain. These spaces are separated from the subarachnoid space by a thin pia layer. VRS are extremely small and can usually only be seen on MR images when dilated...

 are named after him and pathologist Rudolf Virchow

Rudolf Virchow

Rudolph Carl Virchow was a German doctor, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician, known for his advancement of public health...

. Virchow-Robin spaces are lymphatic

Lymph

Lymph is considered a part of the interstitial fluid, the fluid which lies in the interstices of all body tissues. Interstitial fluid becomes lymph when it enters a lymph capillary...

 spaces between the vessels of the central nervous system

Central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish...

.

Selected writings

• Tableaux d’anatomie. Paris, 1851.
• Anatomie microscopique. 1868.
• Programme du cours d’histologie. 1870.
• Traité du microscope, son mode d’emploi, son application, 1871.
• Anatomie et physiologie cellulaire, animale et végétale. Paris, 1873.
• Mémoire sur le développement embryogénique des hirudinées. 1874.
• L’instruction et l’éducation. 1877.
• Nouveau dictionnaire abrége de médecine. Paris, 1886