Hermann Braus

Vocation

German professor of comparative anatomy, anatomy atlas writer and experimental embryologist. After the early death of his sister, Braus grew up as the only child of Otto Braus and Bertha Ernestine. At age 20 he started studying natural sciences in Bonn, but later he went to Jena, to study medicine. Here he met his mentor, the anatomist Max Carl Anton Fürbringer (30 January 1846, Wittenberg - 6 May 1920, Heidelberg), whose daughter Elisabeth (24 March 1879 - 11 May 1929) he would marry in 1899, the couple getting three children. In the winter of 1892-93 he became a physician. He got a position as an anatomy researcher at the University of Jena. Together with his friend Leo Drüner (1870-1940) he made anatomical preparations for the anatomy collection, improved microscopes together with Carl Zeiss, and developed a binocular magnifying glass for the examination of very small animals such as water fleas, the so-called the "Präparier Lupe nach Braus-Drüner", first described in 1895. He studied the anatomy of the nervous system of fish. For this he regularly went to Bergen in Norway and the Mediterranean coasts. He used microscopy to study the details of muscle innervation. In 1899 he got a job as Prosector in Würzburg under Kölliker. Learning from Gustave Born 1851-1901), Braus became a pioneer in experimental embryology: He transplanted embryonic limbs from toads onto other toads in atypical positions to observe their development. In 1901 he became Prosector in Heidelberg under his boss and father in law Fürbringer. In 1912 Fürbringer retired and Braus became professor of anatomy. In 1921 he became professor in Würzburg. His anatomic atlases were notable in that they stressed the functional anatomy more than the topography. In his lessons he integrated x-rays, drawings, projections, movies and pictures, to give an anatomy in vivo experience to his students. He died on the 28 November in 1924 of renal failure in Würzburg. His friend Heinrich von Eggeling (1869-1954) described Braus as a faithful, ambitious, always self-controlled and a critical student.. Link to Wikipedia biography (Portuguese)