Carl Bergmann (1814–1865) and the discovery of the anatomical site in the retina where vision is initiated

ABSTRACT

A preeminent quest of nineteenth-century visual neuroscience was to identify the anatomical elements of the retina that respond to light. A major breakthrough came in 1854, when Carl Bergmann discovered through direct observation that the human fovea contains only rods and cones. On this basis, he argued that these must necessarily be the light-sensitive elements (i.e., photoreceptors) that initiate vision. Bergmann also argued that Henle’s fibers form part of the necessary anatomical link between these distal elements and the proximal ganglion cells, which transmit visual signals to the brain via the optic nerve. However, despite his achievement, Heinrich Müller, not Bergmann, is remembered as the discoverer of human photoreceptors in the literature. This article seeks to correct the record. It situates Bergmann’s work alongside that of his contemporaries, sets out his arguments and the critique he received using archival documents, and makes this history more accessible for current readers by comparing what was said to what we know now. We argue that Bergmann’s arguments are at least as compelling as those of Müller, and that he should be recognized as a codiscoverer of the anatomic site in the retina where vision is initiated.

KEYWORDS:

• Cones
• nineteenth-century German neuroscience
• photoreceptors
• retinal anatomy
• rods
• vision

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Christine A. Curcio and Gerald Westheimer for comments on an early draft of our manuscript, and Nicholas J. Wade for helpful pointers to the historical literature.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.