Heinrich Curschmann was a German internist who was a native of Giessen. Prior to 1888 he worked in hospitals in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

. Afterwards he was a professor and lecturer at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

.

Curschmann is remembered for the 1894 production of Klinische Abbildungen (Clinical Illustrations), which is considered a major pioneer work in medical photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

. It is a collection of photos involving changes to the outer human form caused by internal disease. Curschmann's name is also lent to a number of eponymous medical terms, including Curschmann's disease, also known as hyaloserositis

Serositis

Serositis refers to inflammation of the serous tissues of the body, the tissues lining the lungs , heart , and the inner lining of the abdomen and organs within...

 of the liver

Liver

The liver is a vital organ present in vertebrates and some other animals. It has a wide range of functions, including detoxification, protein synthesis, and production of biochemicals necessary for digestion...

; Curschmann's trocar

Trocar

A trocar is a medical instrument with a sharply pointed end, often three-sided, that is used inside a hollow cylinder to introduce this into blood vessels or body cavities...

, a medical instrument; and Curschmann's spirals

Curschmann's Spirals

Curschmann's spirals refers to a finding in the sputum of spiral shaped mucus plugs. These may occur in several different lung diseases.The term can refer to parts of the desquamated epithelium seen in biopsies from asthmatic patients. They are named after German physician Heinrich Curschmann...

, which are coiled mucinous fibril

Fibril

Fibril is a fine fiber approximately 1 nm in diameter.Cytoplasmic fibrils are observed on the protoplasmic cylinders found in most spirochetal species, although no function of the cytoplasmic fibrils has been ascribed....

s sometimes found in the sputum

Sputum

Sputum is mucus that is coughed up from the lower airways. It is usually used for microbiological investigations of respiratory infections....

 in bronchial asthma.