Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger

Who was Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger?

Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger was a German ophthalmologist who was a native of Halle.

He studied medicine in Erlangen and Halle, earning his doctorate in 1852. Subsequently he was a medical assistant to Peter Krukenberg at Halle, and from 1856 worked under Heinrich Müller at Würzburg. In Würzburg he learned microscopic pathology and anatomy of the eye, thus developing an interest in ophthalmology. Later he moved to Berlin, where he spent six years as an assistant to Albrecht von Graefe.

In 1868 he was appointed professor of ophthalmology at the University of Göttingen, and in 1871 succeeded Albrecht von Graefe as chair of ophthalmology at the Charité-Berlin, a position he would hold for 28 years. Karl Schweigger was the son of scientist Johann Salomo Christoph Schweigger, inventor of an early galvanometer.

Schweigger is remembered for his work involving microscopic pathology of the eye, and made contributions in research of strabismus. Beginning in 1882 he was co-editor of Hermann Knapp's Archiv für Augenheilkunde. He was author of a textbook on eye diseases called Handbuch der speciellen Augenheilkunde that was later translated into English, and also published an influential book on ophthalmoscopy titled Vorlesungen über den Gebrauch des Augenspiegels.