Otto Schrön--an early pioneer in dermatopathology

Otto Schrön was a German histologist of the mid-19th century who spent most of his life in Italy where he was full professor of pathologic anatomy at the University of Naples. Already as a medical student, he participated in studies by Carl Thiersch that proved the epithelial origin of cancer. Schrön went on to study the histology and histopathology of the skin and was the first to discover desmosomes and the tonofilament system, although he did not recognize the true physiologic role of those structures.