Jan Evangelista Purkyne - Vysehrad Cemetery (Prague, Czechia) - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Monumental column-like tomb of the father of cytology, prominent Czech scientist of the 19th century Jan Evangelista Purkyne, you can find in the Czech national burial ground - Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague (Slavínský hrbitov pri kostele sv. Petra a Pavla na Vyšehrade).

Jan Evangelista Purkyne grave is very noticeable due to its large decorative stone column. Grave can be found in Department 5 of the Vyšehrad cemetery under number 59.

Jan Evangelista Purkyne (December 18, 1787 – July 28, 1869) was a Czech anatomist and physiologist. In 1839, he coined the term 'protoplasm' for the fluid substance of a cell. He was one of the best known scientists of his time.

Born in Libochovice (Bohemia), he became fatherless and poor at 6 years old what forced him to enter, at 10, a Piarist convent in Mikulov in southern Moravia. There he turned into a choirboy while reading to become a priest. As a novice, he was called brother Silverius; nonetheless, and just prior to be ordained, he chose to be a doctor instead at Prague University, where, in 1818, he presented his doctoral thesis on vision, and next year he reached his graduation in Medicine. Then as a scientist he manifested interest in a wide range of fields, including Anatomy, Histology, Embryology, and Experimental Physiology. In 1823, and although fingerprints were encouraged to be used in criminology not until about 70 years later with the work of Sir Francis Galton, he recognized the importance of fingerprints in human individuality and divided them into 9 chief categories. He was the first scientist to perceive the existence of skin sweat glands and described the ciliary movements. A serial of scientific eponyms are linked to his name; for instance, the Purkyne cells (in cerebellar cortex) and the Purkyne fibers (in heart ventricles), not to mention that a crater on the Moon and an asteroid also bear his name. He developed new laboratorial methods for processing and sectioning biological tissues and founded, in 1839, the world first independent department of Physiology at the University of Breslau, in Prussia (now Wroclaw, in Poland). He coined the term protoplasm for the living matter inside the cells, a knowledge that helped to sustain the formulation of the Cell Theory. He was considered one of the most prominent and famous scientists of the 19th Century; it is said that for sending him letters from outside Europe, it was enough to write in the address "Purkyne, Europe". In 1868, he was given the Order of Leopold. He died next year in Prague. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote about him: "…and should you fail to understand, let Purkyne give you a hand!"

Source: excerpted from Wikipedia