Waldeyer-Hartz, Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von (1836–1921)

German anatomist who is remembered for introducing the term ‘chromosome’ to medicine, which he used in 1888 to describe the rods that appear in the cell nucleus before division. He also coined the term ‘neurons’. His pioneering work on cancer established that it begins as a single cell and spreads; this analysis, which suggested that cancer might be cured if the original cells could only be removed, challenged the established view of the disease as an incurable, general attack on the body.

Waldeyer-Hartz was professor of pathology at the University of Breslau 1864–72 and professor of anatomy at Strasbourg 1872–83 and Berlin 1883–1917. He worked in a variety of fields, publishing his findings on the spread of cancer in 1867, and writing a book on the ovary and ovum in 1870 (which contained the first description of the germinal epithelium).