Walther Flemming

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Walther Flemming (21 April 1843 – 4 Au‐

gust 1905) was a German biologist and a
founder of cytogenetics.
 Walther Flemming

this picture shows Walther Flemming

Born 21 April 1843

Sachsenberg,
 Mecklenburg-
Schwerin
Died 4 August 1905
(aged 62)
Kiel

Nationality German

Alma mater University of Rostock

Known for Cytogenetics, mitosis,

chromosomes,
chromatin

Scientific career

Doctoral students 2
He was born in Sachsenberg (now part of
Schwerin) as the fifth child and only son of
the psychiatrist Carl Friedrich Flemming
(1799–1880) and his second wife, Au‐
guste Winter. He graduated from the Gym‐
nasium der Residenzstadt, where one of his
colleagues and lifelong friends was writer
Heinrich Seidel.

Career
Flemming trained in medicine at The Uni‐
versity of Prague, graduating in 1868.
Afterwards, he served in 1870–71 as a mil‐
itary physician in the Franco-Prussian War.
From 1873 to 1876 he worked as a teacher
at the University of Prague. In 1876 he ac‐
cepted a post as a professor of anatomy
at the University of Kiel. He became the
director of the Anatomical Institute and
stayed there until his death.

With the use of aniline dyes he was able to

find a structure which strongly absorbed
basophilic dyes, which he named
chromatin. He identified that chromatin
was correlated to threadlike structures in
the cell nucleus – the chromosomes
(meaning coloured bodies), which were
named thus later by German anatomist
Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz (1841–1923).
The Belgian scientist Edouard Van
Beneden (1846–1910) had also observed
them, independently.

Flemming investigated the process of cell

division and the distribution of chromo‐
somes to the daughter nuclei, a process
he called mitosis from the Greek word for
thread. However, he did not see the split‐
ting into identical halves, the daughter
chromatids. He studied mitosis both in
vivo and in stained preparations, using as
the source of biological material the fins
and gills of salamanders. These results
were published first in 1878[1] and in 1882
in the seminal book Zellsubstanz, Kern und
Zelltheilung (1882; Cell substance, nucleus
and cell division). On the basis of his
discoveries, Flemming surmised for the
first time that all cell nuclei came from an‐
other predecessor nucleus (he coined the
phrase omnis nucleus e nucleo, after
Virchow's omnis cellula e cellula).
Polytene chromosomes in a Chironimus salivary gland
cell, one of over 100 drawings from Flemming's book

Zellsubstanz, Kern und Zelltheilung, 1885

Illustrations of cells with chromosomes and mitosis,

from the book Zellsubstanz, Kern und Zelltheilung,
1882
Flemming is famously known for the work
outside of his work that he did. He weekly
fed those who were homeless, donating
every year, 20% of his salary to homeless
shelters. He taught especially young chil‐
dren who were too poor to attend school
about mathematics and science.

Flemming was unaware of the work of

Gregor Mendel (1822–84) on heredity, so
he did not make the connection between
his observations and genetic inheritance.
Two decades would pass before the signi‐
ficance of Flemming's work was truly real‐
ized with the rediscovery of Mendel's rules.
The Science Channel named Flemming's
discovery of mitosis and chromosomes as
one of the 100 most important scientific
discoveries of all time, and one of the 10
most important discoveries in cell
biology.[2]

Flemming's name is honoured by a medal

awarded by the German Society for Cell
Biology (Deutschen Gesellschaft für
Zellbiologie).[3]
References
1. Flemming, W. (1878). "Zur Kenntniss
der Zelle und ihrer Theilungs-
Erscheinungen" (PDF). Schriften des
Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins für
Schleswig-Holstein. 3: 23–27.
2. Science, Carnegie. "100 Greatest
Discoveries | Carnegie Institution for
Science" . carnegiescience.edu. Re‐
trieved 2016-06-10.
3. "Zellbiologie.de | Scientific awards" .
zellbiologie.de. Retrieved 2016-06-10.

Further reading
Wikimedia Commons has media re‐
lated to Walther Flemming.

Lukács (1981). "Walter Flemming, dis‐

coverer of chromatin and mitotic cell
division". Orvosi Hetilap. 122 (6): 349–
50. PMID 7015236 .
Latronico (2000). "Heredity, constitution
and diathesis". Minerva Pediatrica. 52
(1–2): 81–115. PMID 10829597 .
Breathnach (1982). "Biographical
sketches No. 18—Flemming". Irish Med‐
ical Journal. 75 (6): 177.
PMID 7050007 .
Paweletz (2001). "Walther Flemming: pi‐
oneer of mitosis research". Nature
Reviews. Molecular Cell Biology. 2 (1):
72–5. doi:10.1038/35048077 .
PMID 11413469 .
Flemming, Walther (1879). "Beitrage zur
Kenntniss der Zelle und ihrer
Lebenserscheinungen". Archiv für Mik‐
roskopische Anatomie. 16 (1): 302.
doi:10.1007/BF02956386 . and
Flemming, Walther (1880). "Beiträge zur
Kenntniss der Zelle und Ihrer
Lebenserscheinungen" . Archiv für Mik‐
roskopische Anatomie. 18 (1): 151.
doi:10.1007/BF02952594 . Reprinted in
J. Cell Biol. 25:581–589 (1965).
Flemming, W. Zur Kenntniss der Zelle und
ihrer Theilungs-Erscheinungen. In:
Schriften des Naturwissenschaftlichen
Vereins für Schleswig-Holstein 3 (1878),
23–27. (Reprinted in "Zir Kenntniss der
Zelle und ihrer Teilungs-Erscheinungen"
(PDF).)

Carlson, E.A. The Analysis of Mitosis

Shifts Attention to the Chromosomes.
In: Mendel's Legacy. The Origins of Clas‐
sical Genetics. p. 24-5, CSHL Press,
2004. ISBN 0-87969-675-3.
External links
Walther Flemming Biography . Lasker
Labs
Zellsubstanz, Kern und Zelltheilung . Ori‐
ginal text of the book, as PDF (In
German).
Walter Flemming Medaille . In PDF, in
German.
Hardy, P. A., Zacharias, H. (2008):
Walther Flemming und die Mitose: Der
Beitrag seiner ersten Kieler Jahre. Schr.
Naturwiss. Ver. Schlesw.-Holst. 70, 3–
15. Paper about his first description of
 mitosis. In German. "Walther Flemming
und die Mitose: Der Beitrag seiner ersten
Kieler Jahre" (PDF). Retrieved
2010-03-16.

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