Loop of Henle
Asa de Henle
- Date
- c. 1862 · confidence low
- Place
- University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Credited to
- Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Henle described the hairpin-shaped segment of the renal tubules connecting the proximal and distal convoluted tubules, dipping into the renal medulla; it is now known that this loop creates, through countercurrent multiplication, the concentration gradient that allows concentrated urine to be produced.
No well-documented exact date was found in the sources consulted; Henle was professor of anatomy at Göttingen from 1852 and described the renal structure in his anatomical work, approximately dated to around 1862, though his general anatomy treatises date back to 1837.
What it led to
- The modern understanding of urine concentration
- The renal physiology of the countercurrent multiplier system
- The design of loop diuretics