Max Bielschowsky

Who was Max Bielschowsky?

Max Bielschowsky was a German neuropathologist born in Breslau.

After receiving his medical doctorate from the University of Munich in 1893, he worked with Ludwig Edinger at the Senckenberg Pathology Institute in Frankfurt-am-Main. At Senckenberg he learned histological staining techniques from Carl Weigert. From 1896 to 1904 he worked in Emanuel Mendel's psychiatric laboratory in Berlin. In 1904 he joined Oskar Vogt at the neurobiological laboratory at the University of Berlin, where he remained until 1933. Later in his career he worked at the psychiatric clinic at the University of Utrecht, and at the Cajal Institute in Madrid.

Bielschowsky made important contributions in his research of tuberous sclerosis, amaurotic idiocy, paralysis agitans, Huntington’s chorea and myotonia congenita. He is remembered for his histopathological work with disseminated sclerosis, the use of an histological silver stain for impregnation of nerve fibers, and with Stanley Cobb, the development of intravital silver staining. The eponymous "Bielschowsky silver stain" technique was an improvement on the method developed by Ramon y Cajal.