József von Lenhossék (Fig. 1) was professor of anatomy at the Universities of Klausenburg (today Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania) and Pest (today Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary).

Fig. 1
figure 1

József von Lenhossék (1818–1888), Professor Ordinarius of Descriptive and Topographical Anatomy at University of Budapest. Portrait by Béla Gévay, 24 October 1879. Credits: Semmelweis University Gallery (http://baratikor.semmelweis.hu/galeria) and Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum (http://www.pim.hu)

Full size image

He was born on 20 March 1818 in the Castle Quarter (Várnegyed) of Buda (Ofen in German), the son of Mihály Ignác von Lenhossék (1773–1840) and Ludovika Nisnyánszky (1790–1865). His father was professor of physiology and anatomy at the Universities of Vienna and Pest, and author of the five-volume Physiologia medicinalis (J.T. Trattner, Pest, 1818), in Latin. József graduated in medicine in July 1841 from the University of Pest with a thesis on the human iris; in July 1843 he passed the surgeon’s doctoral exam [3].

Between 1852 and 1854 he carried out studies on the central nervous system under the guidance of anatomist Josef Hyrtl (1810–1894) and physiologist Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke (1819–1892) at the University of Vienna [5, 6]. He gave an early account of the lateral portion of the sensory spinal tracts and the first accurate description of the lateral reticulospinal tract, a gray and white matter mesh area in the angle between the ventral and dorsal horns of the spinal cord, which he named processus reticularis [6]. Like Benedict Stilling (1810–1879), Lenhossék [5, 6] also observed this network of fibres and nerve cells in the brainstem, albeit he considered it connected with the pia [7]. Lenhossék also introduced the terms formatio reticularis and tractus solitarius [8].

He presented his research at the Academy of Sciences in Paris [4], where he was awarded the Monthyon Prize. During his visit to London in November 1857, the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons acquired his anatomical specimens, including handwritten notes on the dissection of the spinal cord and on bone fossils, four microscope slides of human pia mater mounted in Canada balsam or similar, and 60 slides (‘Praeparata neurologica microscopica’) accompanied by a bound manuscript volume containing descriptions in Latin (http://surgicat.rcseng.ac.uk).

In 1859 he occupied the first chair of anatomy created in Hungary at the University of Budapest, a position which he held until his death on 2 December 1888, from complications of pneumonia. He also served as Rector in 1878–1879.

Between 1875 and 1885 he conducted anthropological studies on artificial deformities, macrocephalic skulls, and craniometry of skeletons from old English, Roman and Celtic graves. He calculated skull-indices by measuring 50 parameters in each of 76 skulls and 265 heads and is recognized as the founder of physical anthropology in Hungary [9].

Lenhossék was elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (corresponding in 1864, regular in 1873) and appointed Royal Hungarian Counsellor. Other distinctions include the Order of the Iron Crown (3rd Class), foreign orders (Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian), and honourary membership at Société Anatomique, Société Biologique, and Société Anthropologique of Paris, Société Royale des Sciences Médicales of Brussels, Societas Anthropologica of Munich, Leipzig Anatomical Society, Society for Anthropology and Ethnography of Berlin, Czech Medical Association, Vienna Medical Society, Comparative Anthropological and Psychological Society of Florence, Finnish Medical Society, and American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.

The British Medical Journal called him ‘one of the most famous scientific investigators of Hungary’ [1]. His discoveries on the microscopical structure of the central nervous system and particularly the spinal cord, its functional and pathological anatomy (published between 1854 and 1867), made his name honourably known to the scientific world. His brain sections were considered by all competent judges of the highest value, and he was looked upon as one of the first authorities on the histology of the central nervous system. For his anatomical and histological preparations he won a medal at the 1873 Vienna Expo.

Thirteen years before Joseph von Gerlach (1820–1896) and Camillo Golgi (1843–1926) formulated the reticular theory, advocating the continuity rather than the contiguity of neurons, Lenhossék depicted anastomoses of nerve cells in histological sections of the cervical region of the spinal cord [5].

On the contrary, his son, the pioneer neurohistologist Mihály von Lenhossék (1863–1937), professor of anatomy at the Universities of Basel and Budapest [10], was one of the key players who provided evidence for Ramón y Cajal’s neuronism. Mihály is further credited with coining the term ‘astrocyte’ and formulating, with the French histologist Louis-Félix Henneguy (1850–1928), the centriole–kinetosome theory (‘Henneguy–Lenhossék theory’), i.e. the idea that mitotic centrioles and ciliary basal kinetosomes are essentially the same structure, with centriole–kinetosomes giving rise to all undulipodial shafts, such as axonemes, and microtubular cytoskeletal elements [2].

József’s grandson, the biochemist Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893–1986), received the 1937 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid.