Karl Theodor Fahr was a German pathologist who was born in Pirmasens

Pirmasens

Pirmasens is a district-free city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, near the border with France. It is famous for the manufacture of shoes. The surrounding rural district was called Pirmasens from 1818 until 1997, when it was renamed Südwestpfalz....

 of the Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate

Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....

.

In 1903 he earned his medical doctorate from the University of Giessen

University of Giessen

The University of Giessen is officially called the Justus Liebig University Giessen after its most famous faculty member, Justus von Liebig, the founder of modern agricultural chemistry and inventor of artificial fertiliser.-History:The University of Gießen is among the oldest institutions of...

, and continued his studies with Eugen Bostroem

Eugen Bostroem

Eugen Woldemar Bostroem was a German pathologist. He was a native of Fellin , Livonia). He studied medicine in Leipzig and Erlangen, receiving his degree in 1876. Afterwards he was an assistant to Friedrich Albert von Zenker at the pathology institute in Erlangen...

 (1850-1926) in Giessen, Morris Simmonds

Morris Simmonds

Morris Simmonds was a German physician, pathologist, from a family originating in Hanau but born on the then Danish St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands in Caribbean Sea...

 (1855-1925) in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 and with Ilya Ilyich Metchnikoff (1845-1916) in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

. In 1924, he became director of the pathological institute at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

Fahr is remembered for his work in nephrology

Nephrology

Nephrology is a branch of internal medicine and pediatrics dealing with the study of the function and diseases of the kidney.-Scope of the specialty:...

 and the research of kidney

Kidney

The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...

 disorders. With internist Franz Volhard

Franz Volhard

Franz Volhard was a German internist who was born in Munich.He studied medicine in Bonn, Strasbourg, and Halle. His instructors included Eduard Friedrich Wilhelm Pflüger , Bernhard Naunyn , Oswald Schmiedeberg , and Joseph von Mering , and from 1897 to 1905 he worked at the university medical...

 (1872-1950) he published a comprehensive monograph

Monograph

A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author.It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself...

 on Bright's disease

Bright's disease

Bright's disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer used, as diseases are now classified according to their more fully understood causes....

 titled Die Brightsche Nierenkrankheit. In 1923, he provided an early correlation between lung cancer

Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...

 (Bronchialkarzinom) and tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 smoking. Today his name is associated with Fahr's disease, which is a degenerative neurological

Neurology

Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...

 disorder characterized by calcifications and cell loss within the basal ganglia

Basal ganglia

The basal ganglia are a group of nuclei of varied origin in the brains of vertebrates that act as a cohesive functional unit. They are situated at the base of the forebrain and are strongly connected with the cerebral cortex, thalamus and other brain areas...

.

Selected writings

• Die Bright’sche Nierenkrankheit: Klinik, Pathologie und Atlas. (Bright's Kidney Disease: Clinic, Pathology and Atlas); with Franz Volhard, Springer, Berlin 1914.
• Die Nierengewächse. In: Friedrich Henke und Otto Lubarsch
  Otto Lubarsch
  Otto Lubarsch was a German pathologist who was a native of Berlin.He originally studied philosophy and natural sciences in Leipzig and Heidelberg, and later earned his medical degree in Strasbourg in 1883...
  
  (Hrsg.): Handbuch der speziellen pathologischen Anatomie und Histologie. Band 6, 1. Berlin 1925.
• Zusammenhangstrennung und durch Gewaltanwendung bedingte krankhafte Veränderungen des Nierenbeckens und des Harnleiters. In: Friedrich Henke und Otto Lubarsch (Hrsg.): Handbuch der speziellen pathologischen Antomie und Histologie. Band 6, 1. Berlin 1925.