Theodor Karl Gustav von Leber (February 29, 1840 - April 17, 1917) 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...

 ophthalmologist from Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

.

Leber was a student of Hermann von Helmholtz

Hermann von Helmholtz

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz was a German physician and physicist who made significant contributions to several widely varied areas of modern science...

 (1821-1894) in Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1862. He remained in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 as an assistant to Hermann Jakob Knapp

Hermann Jakob Knapp

Hermann Jakob Knapp was a German-American ophthalmologist who was born in Dauborn, Nassau. He earned his medical degree from the University of Giessen in 1854. As a young physician he studied with Franciscus Cornelis Donders in Utrecht, William Bowman in London, Albrecht von Graefe in Berlin and...

 (1832-1911) at the Heidelberg eye clinic, afterwards studying physiology

Physiology

Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...

 under Carl Ludwig

Carl Ludwig

----Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig was a German physician and physiologist.In 1842 Ludwig became a professor of physiology and in 1846 of comparative anatomy...

 (1816-1895) in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. From 1867 until 1870 he was an assistant to ophthalmologist Albrecht von Graefe (1828-1870) in Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

. In 1871 he became director of the university eye clinic in Göttingen, and from 1890 to 1910 was director of the eye clinic in Heidelberg.

Leber was the first to describe what is now known as Leber's congenital amaurosis

Leber's congenital amaurosis

Leber's congenital amaurosis is a rare inherited eye disease that appears at birth or in the first few months of life, and affects around 1 in 80,000 of the population.It was first described by Theodor Leber in the 19th century...

 in 1869 and Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy

Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy or Leber optic atrophy is a mitochondrially inherited degeneration of retinal ganglion cells and their axons that leads to an acute or subacute loss of central vision; this affects predominantly young adult males...

 in 1871. Also an anatomical structure called "Leber's plexus" is named after him, which is a small venous plexus

Plexus

A plexus is a part of nervous system. Plexus has a slightly different definition in vertebrates and in invertebrates.- In vertebrates :In vertebrates, a plexus is an area where nerves branch and rejoin. The electrical signals do not mix; rather, the fibres travel together with their electrical...

 in the eye located between Schlemm's canal

Schlemm's canal

Schlemm's canal, also known as canal of Schlemm or the scleral venous sinus, is a circular channel in the eye that collects aqueous humor from the anterior chamber and delivers it into the bloodstream via the anterior ciliary veins....

 (named after German anatomist Friedrich Schlemm

Friedrich Schlemm

Friedrich Schlemm was a German anatomist who was professor at the University of Berlin.He was born in Salzgitter. As his family could not afford higher education, he was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon in Braunschweig. This gave him the opportunity to study anatomy and surgery at the local...

) and Fontana's spaces

Trabecular meshwork

The trabecular meshwork is an area of tissue in the eye located around the base of the cornea, near the ciliary body, and is responsible for draining the aqueous humor from the eye via the anterior chamber .The tissue is spongy and lined by trabeculocytes; it allows fluid to drain into a set of...

 (named after Italian physicist Felice Fontana

Felice Fontana

Felice Fontana was an Italian physicist who discovered the water gas shift reaction in 1780. He is also credited with launching modern toxicology and investigating the human eye.-Early life:...

).

A scholarship given by the German Ophthalmological Society is named after Leber, and is called the Theodor-Leber-Stipendium zur Förderung der pharmakologischen und pharmakophysiologischen Forschung in der Augenheilkunde.