J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl) Hecker

Born in Erfurt in 1795, he moved to Berlin as a child when his father, also a physician, took a professorship there. He studied medicine at the University of Berlin, interrupted his studies to serve as a volunteer during the wars against Napoleon, and completed his doctorate in 1817.

His work gradually shifted toward the history of medicine. In 1822 he became an extraordinary professor in Berlin, and in 1834 he was appointed ordinary professor of the history of medicine. He is often described as an early founder of historical pathology because he examined illness not just as a medical problem, but as part of human history.

Hecker is especially remembered for writing about epidemic and unusual diseases, including the Black Death, the dancing mania, smallpox, infant mortality, and the sweating sickness. That broad, story-driven approach helped make medical history accessible to readers beyond the profession, and it remains the reason his books continue to be read today.