Waldeyer-Hartz

In 1867, Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer-Hartz proposed, with remarkable foresight, that cancer cells developed from normal cells during cell division and then spread by the blood or lymph to other sites in the body. He was an anatomist who not only realised the cause of cancer but also identified the basic unit of the nervous system, to which he gave the name neuron. 

Flemming s tentative term for the cell material that takes up dyes, chromatin, was enlarged upon by Wilhelm von Waldeyer-Hartz (1841-1923) who, in 1888, called the threadlike structures in the nucleus chromosomes, or colored bodies. Thus our present-day vocabulary with which we describe cellular components had its origin in color reactions, and remains a colorful reminder of that colorful past. 

---