Leonhard Koeppe was a German ophthalmologist born in Torgau

Torgau

Torgau is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen.Outside Germany, the town is most well known as the place where during the Second World War, United States Army forces coming from the west met with forces of the Soviet Union...

, Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

.

He studied medicine in Freiburg

Freiburg

Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...

 and Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

, earning his doctorate in 1911. In 1914 he became an assistant at the ophthalmology clinic in Halle, and in 1918 received his habilitation. In 1921 he became an associate professor at the University of Halle.

From 1923 to 1925 he was a research associate for Bausch and Lomb in Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

, returning to Halle in 1926 to perform optical research. In 1930-31 he was a research professor of ophtalmo-microscopy at Iowa State University

Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

, and afterwards returned to the University of Halle as an instructor.

Koeppe was a specialist involving the 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...

 of the eye

Human eye

The human eye is an organ which reacts to light for several purposes. As a conscious sense organ, the eye allows vision. Rod and cone cells in the retina allow conscious light perception and vision including color differentiation and the perception of depth...

 and its internal structure. He is credited with providing a description of small white nodules at the pupil

Pupil

The pupil is a hole located in the center of the iris of the eye that allows light to enter the retina. It appears black because most of the light entering the pupil is absorbed by the tissues inside the eye. In humans the pupil is round, but other species, such as some cats, have slit pupils. In...

lary margins found in granulomatous uveitis

Uveitis

Uveitis specifically refers to inflammation of the middle layer of the eye, termed the "uvea" but in common usage may refer to any inflammatory process involving the interior of the eye....

. These structures are now referred to as "Koeppe nodules

Koeppe's nodules

Koeppe's nodules are small nodules seen at the inner margin of the iris in patients with granulomatous anterior uveitis, which occurs in conditions sich as sarcoidosis and tuberculosis...

". His name is also associated with the "Koeppe lens", which is a type of goniolens specifically designed for office and operating room examinations, and is often used in laser

Laser

A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...

 therapy.

Koeppe is also known for popularizing and making improvements to the slit lamp

Slit lamp

The slit lamp is an instrument consisting of a high-intensity light source that can be focused to shine a thin sheet of light into the eye. It is used in conjunction with a biomicroscope...

, an ophthalmic device that had been recently devised by Allvar Gullstrand

Allvar Gullstrand

Allvar Gullstrand was a Swedish ophthalmologist.Born at Landskrona, Sweden, Gullstrand was professor successively of eye therapy and of optics at the University of Uppsala. He applied the methods of physical mathematics to the study of optical images and of the refraction of light in the eye...

 (1862-1930). In addition, he travelled throughout Europe and North America giving lectures and demonstrating the usage of the slit lamp.

In 1921 he was awarded with an honorary professorship from the University of Madrid

Complutense University of Madrid

The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

.

Selected writings

• Die Diathermie und Lichtbehandlung des Auges. (Diathermy
  Diathermy
  In the natural sciences, the term diathermy means "electrically induced heat" and is commonly used for muscle relaxation. It is also a method of heating tissue electromagnetically or ultrasonically for therapeutic purposes in medicine.-Surgical uses:...
  
  and Light Treatment for the Eye).
• Die Mikroskopie des lebenden Auges in zwei Bänden (Microscopy of the Living Eye, two volumes).