Johann Lukas Schönlein


Johann Lukas Schönlein was a German naturalist, and professor of medicine, born in Bamberg. He studied medicine at Landshut, Jena, Göttingen, and Würzburg. After teaching at Würzburg and Zurich, he was called to Berlin in 1839, where he taught therapeutics and pathology.
He served as physician to Frederick William IV.

Work

He was one of the first German medical professors to lecture in the native tongue instead of Latin. Schönlein described purpura rheumatica an allergic non-thrombopenic purpura rash that became known as Henoch–Schönlein purpura, though now known as IgA vasculitis.
He also discovered the parasitic cause of ringworm or favus.
J. L. Schönlein is also attributed with naming the disease tuberculosis in 1839. Prior to Schönlein's designation, tuberculosis had been called "consumption".