Josef Hyrtl (7 December 1810 – 17 July 1894) was an Austrian anatomist. Biography Hyrtl was born at Kismarton, Hungary (now Eisenstadt, Austria). He began his medical studies in Vienna in 1831, having received his preliminary education in his native town. His parents were poor, and he had to find funds to defray the expenses of his medical education. In 1833, while he was still a student, he was named prosector in anatomy, and the preparations which this position required him to make for teaching purposes attracted the attention of professors as well as students. His graduation thesis, Antiquitates anatomicæ rariores, was a prophecy of the work to which his life was to be devoted. On graduation he became Prof. Czermak's assistant (famulus) and later became also the curator of the museum. He added valuable treasures to the museum by the preparations which he made for it. As a student he set up a little laboratory and dissecting room in his lodgings, and his injections of anatomical material were greatly admired. He took advantage of his post in the museum to give special courses in anatomy to students and in practical anatomy to physicians. These courses were numerously attended. In 1837, when only twenty-six, Hyrtl was offered the professorship of anatomy at the University of Prague, and by his work there laid the foundation of his great reputation as a teacher of anatomy. There he completed his well-known textbook of human anatomy, which went through some twenty editions and has been translated into several languages. The chair of anatomy at Vienna fell vacant in 1845. Satisfied with the opportunities for work at Prague, he would not have applied for the post but for the insistence of his friends. He was immediately elected. Five years later he published his Handbook of Topographic Anatomy, the first textbook of applied anatomy of its kind ever issued. Before his death he was to see this department of anatomy become one of the most important portions of the teaching in the medical schools of the world. It was as a teacher that Hyrtl did his great work. Professor Karl von Bardeleben, himself one of the great teachers of the nineteenth century, did not hesitate to say that in this Hyrtl was unequalled. His fame spread throughout Europe, and he came to be looked upon as the special glory of the University of Vienna. In 1858,