He studied medicine at Greifswald and Berlin, and was appointed extraordinary professor at Halle in 1854 and five years later ordinary professor of anatomy and histology and director of the Anatomical Institute at Bonn. He died at Bonn on the 16th of January 1874.
He founded, in 1865, and edited the important Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie, to which he contributed many papers, and he advanced the subject generally, by refining on its technical methods. His works included:
Beiträge zur Naturgeschichte der Turbellarien (1851)
Uber den Organismus der Polythalamien (1854)
Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Landplanarien (1857)
Zur Kenntnis der elektrischen Organe der Fische (1858)
Zur Anatomie und Physiologie der Retitia (1866)
His name is especially known for his work on the cell theory. Uniting Félix Dujardin's conception of animal sarcode with Hugo von Mohl's of vegetable protoplasma, he pointed out their identity, and included them under the common name of protoplasm, defining the cell as a nucleated mass of protoplasm with or without a cell-wall (Das Protoplasma der Rhizopoden und der Pflanzenzellen; ein Beiträg zur Theorie der Zelle, 1863).
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Sigismund II or Sigismund Augustus, 1520-72, king of Poland (1548-72).
Sigismund III 1566-1632, king of Poland (1587-1632) and Sweden (1592-99).
Sigismund, 1368-1437, Holy Roman emperor (1433-37), German king (1410-37), king of Hungary (1387-1437) and of Bohemia (1419-37), elector of Brandenburg (1376-1415), son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.