Purkynĕ's (Purkinje's) muscle fibres in the heart.

Jan Evangelista Purkyne (1787-1869) died 100 years ago. He was mourned by the entire Czech nation in whose cultural renaissance he had played a prominent part, and by many leading European physiologists and histologists who had sat at his feet and had been inspired by him. The unfamiliar but correct spelling "Purkyne" pronounced "Poorkeynie" must be explained. According to John, Purkyn6's nain biographer (John, 1959), there are at least nine different spellings of Purkyne's name in world literature. All this started with the unsuccessful attempt by a German priest to make a correct entry of Purkyne's Czech name into the Register of Birth of the little town of Libochowice. Purkyne himself learned the correct spelling of his name only whenhe entered Prague University and used it from then onwards in his private correspondence. In his publications he used the German version "Purkinje" until 1850 when he returned to Prague as professor of physiology. In this article the spelling is used as it appeared in Purkyne's contributions, and in those by others who referred to his work. Purkyne's catholic interests and original observations are well known. His annus mirabilis was 1832 when-after a seven years' war with the university authorities in Breslau-he was given a Ploessel microscope with an achromatic lens. Soon afterwards his assistant Adolf Oschatz (1812-1857) presented him with a new microtome (1842) which was far superior to the various modifications of the model described by John Hill (1717-1775) in 1770.