Ernst Leopold Salkowski

Ernst Leopold Salkowski (1844 to 1923) was a German biochemist and a native of Königsberg. He was educated at the University of Königsberg and later worked in Berlin as an assistant in the chemical laboratory of Rudolf Virchow's institute of pathology in 1872. In 1874 he became an associate professor of medicinal chemistry in Berlin, in 1880 a departmental head, and in 1909 he was given the title of full professor. He specialized in physiological and pathological chemistry and also contributed to pharmacology, analytical chemistry and hygiene. In 1890 he was the first to describe tissue autolysis, which he called auto-digestion, and he is remembered for developing tests for detecting compounds and substances, such as the Salkowski test for cholesterol.