Forgotten nephrologists: Leonhard Thurneysser and Hermann Senator

Leonhard Thurneysser and Hermann Senator are examples of "Forgotten Nephrologists". Leonhard Thurneysser was born in Basel, Switzerland in the 16th Century and worked for many years in Berlin. He was a goldsmith, miner, printer, astrologist and uroscopist. He traveled all over Europe. His importance stems from the physicochemical methods he introduced into uroscopy. He prosposed that urine distillates and their residues should be burnt in order to define their composition from the colour of the flame. He developed a overcomplicated system of fractionated distillations and drew more and more speculative conclusions. Hermann Senator lived in the 19th Century. Born and trained in Berlin, he became a critical and experienced nephrologist. His observations of "physiological" and "pathological" protein excretion in humans became important. Critical oberservations in the hospital, experimental testing of derived hypotheses and careful analyses of derived concepts characterize his work. He stimulated many young physicians to cooperate. Together with Munck he formulated the "Senator-Munck-Doctrine", according to which current concepts of urine formation as postulated by Bowman, Ludwig, Heidenhain et al could be and were unified in a "Filtration-Secretion-Reabsorption-Concept".