Hassall and Hassall-Henle bodies
It is the death anniversary of Arthur Hassall Henle. (13th Dec 1817- 9th April,1894) He is a British physician, chemist and microscopist who is primarily known for his work in public health and food safety.
He published a two-volume study, The Microscopic Anatomy of the Human Body in Health and Disease, the first English textbook on the subject.
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He became famous with his book, A microscopical examination of the water supplied to the inhabitants of London, which became an influential work in promoting the cause of water reform.
Two medical terms are named after Hassall:
Hassall corpuscles- The spherical bodies in the medulla of thymus glands
Hassall-Henle bodies-small abnormal transparent growths on the posterior surface of Descemet’s membrane
The Thames caused the spread of many diseases, including cholera. In the early 1850s, he also studied food adulteration. His reports led to the first Food Adulteration Act of 1860. He continued his interest in climate and disease and published extensively on climatic treatments for TB.
The biography of Hassall is written by Dr Ernest Gray.
What do we know of Hassall? It is this question which Dr Ernest Gray has set out to answer, and in this pleasantly written and well researched biography he shines a torch-light into the Victorian gloom (otherwise barely lit ‘by candlelight’) and reveals Arthur Hill Hassall as not merely a physician to be remembered for his eponymous thymic corpuscles but also a remarkable figure who excelled in many varied spheres
He died in 1894 at the age of 77.
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