Eugen von Hippel was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 ophthalmologist who was born in Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

. He studied medicine in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 under ophthalmologist Theodor Leber

Theodor Leber

Theodor Karl Gustav von Leber was a German ophthalmologist from Karlsruhe.Leber was a student of Hermann von Helmholtz in Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1862...

 (1840-1917) and neurologist

Neurologist

A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

 Wilhelm Heinrich Erb

Wilhelm Heinrich Erb

Wilhelm Heinrich Erb was a German neurologist who was a native of Winnweiler, Rhineland-Palatinate.- Academic career :...

 (1840-1921). In 1897 he attained the title of "professor extraordinary" at Heidelberg, and in 1909 became a professor at the eye clinic in Halle. In 1914 he became a professor of ophthalmology in Göttingen

Göttingen

Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...

.

In 1904, Hippel described a rare disorder of the retina

Retina

The vertebrate retina is a light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina, which serves much the same function as the film in a camera. Light striking the retina initiates a cascade of chemical and electrical...

, and in 1911 discovered the anatomical basis of this disease, which he named "angiomatosis retinae". However it wasn't until 1926 that Swedish pathologist Arvid Lindau

Arvid Lindau

Arvid Lindau was a Swedish pathologist born in Malmö. During his career he published more than forty papers on pathology, neurology, and bacteriology. At the Institute of Pathological Anatomy in Lund he wrote an important thesis titled Studien über Kleinhirncysten...

 recognized an association between angiomatosis

Angiomatosis

Angiomatosis is a non-neoplastic condition presenting with little knots of capillaries in various organs. It consists of many angiomas. It is also known as Von Hippel-Lindau Disease and is a rare genetic multi system disorder characterized by the abnormal growth of tumours in the body...

 of the retina with hemangioblastoma

Hemangioblastoma

Hemangioblastomas are tumors of the central nervous system that originate from the vascular system usually during middle-age. Sometimes these tumors occur in other sites such as the spinal cord and retina...

s of the cerebellum

Cerebellum

The cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses, but its movement-related functions are the most solidly established...

 and other parts 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...

. This condition is known today as the Von Hippel-Lindau Disease

Von Hippel-Lindau disease

Von Hippel–Lindau is a rare, autosomal dominant genetic condition in which hemangioblastomas are found in the cerebellum, spinal cord, kidney and retina. These are associated with several pathologies including renal angioma, renal cell carcinoma and pheochromocytoma...

 (VHL).

Hippel contributed several writings to textbooks regarding anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

 and diseases of the eye. He was the son of Arthur von Hippel

Arthur von Hippel (physician)

Arthur von Hippel was a German ophthalmologist who was a native of Fischhausen, East Prussia. He was the father of ophthalmologist Eugen von Hippel ....

 (1841-1916), a pioneer in corneal transplantation, and an uncle to German-American physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 Arthur R. von Hippel

Arthur R. von Hippel

Arthur Robert von Hippel was a German American materials scientist and physicist. Von Hippel was a pioneer in the study of dielectrics, ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials, and semiconductors and was a codeveloper of radar during World War II.-Early life:Von Hippel was born in Rostock,...

(1898-2003).

External links

• VHL Family Alliance (biography of Eugen von Hippel)