Nephrol Dial Transplant (1999) 14: 2510-2515
© 1999 European Renal Association-European Dialysis and Transplant Association
Historical Note
The loop of Henle, a turning-point in the history of kidney physiology
Professeur honoraire au Collège de France
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The purpose of this article is to analyse the historical reasons why nearly a hundred years elapsed between the discovery of the loop of Henle in the last century and our understanding of its physiological function.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, at a time when anatomical microscopy was rapidly developing in Germany—leading Rudolf Virchov to propose the cellular theory of tissue organisation in 1858—Jacob Henle (1809–1885) was investigating the histological anatomy of renal tissue; from 1862 onwards, he described in a series of publications the presence of tubular loops running perpendicular to the kidney surface, and penetrating at a variable depth in the medulla. The descending portion of these loops had a small outer diameter (thin limb) as compared to that of the ascending portion located in the outer medulla (thick limb). Figure 1
reproduces illustrations published by Henle in 1866 [1]: note the remarkable accuracy
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