Education
He studied medicine in Leipzig and for most of his career (1894-1931) he was associated with the city hospital in Dresden.
He studied medicine in Leipzig and for most of his career (1894-1931) he was associated with the city hospital in Dresden.
Schmorl is remembered for his work in histology and his studies of the human skeleton. He created an histological stain especially designed to show the canaliculi and lamellae in sections of bone. He also described protrusions of the intervertebral disc into the vertebral body.
These protusions are now known as Schmorl"s nodes.
Shortly before his death, Schmorl published Die Gesunde und Kranke Wirbelsäule (The Healthy and Sick Spine). He died from septicemia caused by an infected finger, which he nicked in the process of dissecting a spine.
In 1904 Schmorl coined the term kernicterus to describe nuclear jaundice of the basal ganglia. This condition was earlier identified in 1875 by pathologist Johannes Orth (1847-1923).