[Egon Erwin Kisch and the Blazek sisters. A contribution to the history of teratology].

A century ago, on April 29th 1885, the "Raving Reporter" Egon Erwin Kisch was born in Prague. On this occasion his news-reporting about the conjoined Bohemian twins Rosa and Josefa Blazek (born 1878) is appreciated and compared respectively contrasted with the observations and papers of contemporary physicians, among them the famous neuropathologist Richard Henneberg from Berlin and the important gynaecologists Breisky and Pitha from Prague and Schauta from Vienna. Kisch's report "The conjoined sisters" was published in his book "Sensation fair" during his antifascistic exile firstly 1941 in New York in English, a year later in Mexico-City in the German language.

[The prosector and his position in the hierarchy of anatomical institutions as shown especially in anatomical departments in Berlin, Halle, Leipzig, Rostock and Greifswald].

In the course of history of anatomy the prosector (dissector, incisor, secant, sculptor, procurator) held total different positions: at first he acted as a manual craftsman (barber surgeon) and as teacher's assistant lacking any academic education (organized in fraternities or guilds). In the epoch of Vesalius he became an anatomist who was dissecting and demonstrating as well as teaching. The statements are explained by examples from the universities in Bologna, Paris, Padua, Vienna, Leipzig, Greifswald, Basle and Strasbourg.

[Johann Friedrich Meckel, Jr. as founder of scientific teratology].

n the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death, the scientific work of the famous German anatomist Johann Friedrich Meckel (1781 to 1833) in Halle is appreciated. The Younger Meckel is counted to the most outstanding figures in the history of anatomy and medicine in the first third of 19th century. According to his founded knowledges in the normal, comparative, and pathologic anatomy and embryology he was able to give a scientific argument of malformations first of all in the history of medicine and biology.