Hermann Fol

Who was Hermann Fol?

Hermann Fol was a Swiss zoologist and the father of modern cytology.

After studying medicine and zoology with Ernst Haeckel at the University of Jena where he was a pupil of François Jules Pictet de la Rive and Edouard Claparède, he accompanied Haeckel on a prolonged scientific journey around the coasts of West Africa and of the Canary Islands. On his return to Europe he undertook medical studies in Heidelberg and completed them by obtaining his diploma in 1869 in Zurich and Berlin. In 1871 he studied planktonic fauna in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the recommendation of Carl Vogt. In 1878, he obtained a post of professor at the University of Geneva where in the following year, he observed the penetration of a spermatozoon into an egg becoming thus a pioneer of the microscopic studies of fertilisation and cellular division. In 1886, he resigned from his post in Geneva to devote himself entirely to his research in Villefranche-sur-Mer where, in 1880, he had established a small marine laboratory with Jules Henri Barrois.