Embryology History - Franklin Mall

From Embryology

Introduction

Franklin Mall (1911)

Franklin P. Mall (1862-1917) is most remembered for his work done at the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Mall began collecting human embryos while a postgraduate student in Lepzig with Wilhelm His, but didn't receive the first Carnegie specimen until his position at Johns Hopkins University.

Surprizingly age and size proves a poor way to organize embryos. It is very difficult to accurately age an embryo, and it could shrink a full 50% in the preserving fluids. Mall took it upon himself to find a better way. He had more success basing his "staging" scheme on morphological characteristics. To that end, Mall and his colleagues not only prepared and preserved serial sections of the embryos, they also made hundreds of three-dimensional models at different stages of growth.

According to Adrianne Noe, who manages the collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, Mall gathered the most renowned scientists, scholars, artists, photographers, and craftspeople ever to apply their interests and skills to embryology.

One of the first to be hired, in 1913, was modeler Osborne O. Heard, who spent 42 years at the department and made over 700 wax-based reconstructions. The results of this team effort still stand as the international standard by which human embryos are described and classified.

(Above text and information about the collection is modifed from the original Carnegie Institute website)

Embryologists: William Hunter | Wilhelm Roux | Caspar Wolff | Wilhelm His | Oscar Hertwig | Julius Kollmann | Hans Spemann | Francis Balfour | Charles Minot | Ambrosius Hubrecht | Charles Bardeen | Franz Keibel | Franklin Mall | Florence Sabin | George Streeter | George Corner | James Hill | Jan Florian | Thomas Bryce | Thomas Morgan | Ernest Frazer | Francisco Orts-Llorca | José Doménech Mateu | Frederic Lewis | Arthur Meyer | Robert Meyer | Erich Blechschmidt | Klaus Hinrichsen | Hideo Nishimura | Arthur Hertig | John Rock | Viktor Hamburger | Mary Lyon | Nicole Le Douarin | Robert Winston | Fabiola Müller | Ronan O'Rahilly | Robert Edwards | John Gurdon | Shinya Yamanaka | Embryology History | Category:People
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Santiago Ramón y Cajal | Camillo Golgi
Carnegie Stages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | About Stages | Timeline | Carnegie Collection Glossary


Nature - Obituary Notice

Prof. Franklin P. Mall

"ALL who are interested in the progress of biology will learn with deep regret of the sudden death of Dr. Franklin P. Mall, of Johns Hopkins University, at the age of fifty-five. It was chiefly owing to his precepts and example that, in little more than a score of years, a complete revolution was wrought in the anatomical departments attached to medical schools throughout the length and breadth of the United States. Dissecting-rooms were changed from places in which routine teaching and perfunctory investigation were carried on to laboratories where exact methods were applied to the elucidation of definite problems. Prof. Mall was thirty-one years of age when he returned in 1893 from a long course of study under the late Prof. His, of Leipzig, to become the first professor of anatomy in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He designed his own department, selecting a slimly built, cheap, brick construction, and settled down with his students to combine study with research. He devoted himself to embryological and microscopic investigations, reconstructing his results in the exact model methods practised by Prof. His. His writings cover the whole field of embryology, every contribution representing a permanent addition to knowledge. His pupils left him to fill the various chairs of anatomy as they fell vacant, and carried to their new departments the methods and spirit they had imbibed from Franklin Mall. He took a leading-part in the foundation of the excellent journals which have been established in the United States for the publication of anatomical investigations the American Journal of Anatomy, the Anatomical Record, and the Journal of Morphology. He pursued the study of human embryology in a more systematic manner than has ever been accomplished by any other man."
Links: Nature (27 December 1917)

References

<pubmed>17830207</pubmed> <pubmed>17770718</pubmed>

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Cite this page: Hill, M.A. (2024, March 29) Embryology Embryology History - Franklin Mall. Retrieved from https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Embryology_History_-_Franklin_Mall

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