Hermann Eichhorst

Hermann Ludwig Eichhorst (March 3, 1849 - July 26, 1921) was a German-Swiss internist who was a native of Königsberg. He studied medicine in Königsberg and Berlin, and was an assistant to Ernst Viktor von Leyden (1832-1910), Bernhard Naunyn (1839-1935), and Friedrich Theodor von Frerichs (1819-1885). In 1884 became director of the medical clinic in Zurich, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Eichhorst made contributions in several fields of medicine. In a 1878 monograph he documented one of the earliest descriptions of progressive pernicious anemia. He also discovered globular forms in the poikilocytosis of this disease, which were to become known as Eichhorst's corpuscles. In 1896 and 1913 Eichhorst provided the earliest comprehensive accounts of infantile and hereditary multiple sclerosis. He also described a form of interstitial neuritis that is sometimes referred to as Eichhorst's neuritis.

Selected writings

 * Handbuch der speciellen Pathologie und Therapie für praktische Ärzte und Studirende (Textbook for Special Pathology and Therapy for Physicians and Students); (1885)
 * Pathologie und Therapie der Nervenkrankheiten (Pathology and Therapy of Nervous Diseases)
 * Tratado de Pathologia interna e de Therapeutica (Treatments of Internal Pathology and Therapy”, (1889)
 * Uber infantile und hereditäre multiple Sklerose (On childhood and hereditary multiple sclerosis)
 * Lehbuch Der Praktischen Medicin (Textbook of the Practice of Medicine); authorized translation from German, edited by Augustus A. Eshner (1901)