Abraham Vater was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 anatomist from Wittenberg

Wittenberg

Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is a city in Germany in the Bundesland Saxony-Anhalt, on the river Elbe. It has a population of about 50,000....

. He received his doctorate in philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 from the University of Wittenberg in 1706, and his medical degree from the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 in 1710. He later practiced medicine in Wittenberg, becoming an associate professor in 1719, a full professor of anatomy in 1732 and a professor of therapy in 1746.

Vater is primarily known for his work in anatomy, but he also published works on chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, botany

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, pharmacology

Pharmacology

Pharmacology is the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. More specifically, it is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function...

 and gynaecology

Gynaecology

Gynaecology or gynecology is the medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system . Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women"...

. He was the first to describe the hepatopancreatic ampulla

Hepatopancreatic ampulla

The ampulla of Vater, also known as the ', is formed by the union of the pancreatic duct and the common bile duct. The ampulla is specifically located at the major duodenal papilla....

, which is the juncture of the pancreatic duct

Pancreatic duct

The pancreatic duct, or duct of Wirsung , is a duct joining the pancreas to the common bile duct to supply pancreatic juices which aid in digestion provided by the "exocrine pancreas"...

 and the common bile duct

Common bile duct

The common bile duct is a tube-like anatomic structure in the human gastrointestinal tract. It is formed by the union of the common hepatic duct and the cystic duct . It is later joined by the pancreatic duct to form the ampulla of Vater...

, and is now referred to as the ampulla of Vater.

In 1719, Vater was the first to notice oval-shaped organs of concentric layers of connective tissue wrapped around nerve endings in the skin. They were between 1–4 mm long, and he called these structures papillae nervae. Apparently his research was forgotten, because in 1831 they were rediscovered by anatomist Filippo Pacini

Filippo Pacini

Filippo Pacini was an Italian anatomist, posthumously famous for isolating the cholera bacillus Vibrio cholerae in 1854, well before Robert Koch's more widely accepted discoveries thirty years later....

 (1812–1883) while performing a dissection of a hand. Pacini was the first to describe their functionality as mechanoreceptor

Mechanoreceptor

A mechanoreceptor is a sensory receptor that responds to mechanical pressure or distortion. There are four main types in the glabrous skin of humans: Pacinian corpuscles, Meissner's corpuscles, Merkel's discs, and Ruffini corpuscles...

s that are sensitive to vibration and pressure changes, and thus were to become known as Pacinian corpuscles. Today, the term "Vater-Pacini corpuscles" is sometimes used to credit the discoveries of both men. These organs are one of several types of mechanoreceptors in the body, some others being Meissner corpuscles

Meissner's corpuscle

Meissner's corpuscles are a type of mechanoreceptor. They are a type of nerve ending in the skin that is responsible for sensitivity to light touch. In particular, they have highest sensitivity when sensing vibrations lower than 50 Hertz...

 (tactile and touch receptors), Ruffini corpuscles (respond to skin stretch and torque), and Krause corpuscles.

Writings

• Dissertatio anatomica quo novum bilis dicetilicum circa orifucum ductus choledochi ut et valvulosam colli vesicæ felleæ constructionem ad disceptandum proponit, 1720
• Das Blatter-Beltzen oder die Art und Weise, die Blattern durch künstliche Einpfropfung zu erwecken, 1721
• Catalogus plantarum inprimis exoticarum horti academici Wittenbergensis, 1721–1724
• Catalogus Variorum Exoticorum Rarissimorum Maximam Partem Incognitorum ... quae in museo suo, brevi luci exponendo possidet Abraham Vater, 1726
• Diss., qua valor et sufficienta signorum infantem recens natum aut motuum aut vivum editum arguentium examinatur, 1735
• De calculis in locis inusitatis natis et per vias insolitas exclusis, 1741
• De instrumentoro ad determinadas lucis refractiones, 1751