Abraham Vater

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Abraham Vater (1684–1751) was a German anatomist from Wittenberg. He earned a philosophy doctorate at the University of Wittenberg in 1706 and a medical degree at the University of Leipzig in 1710. After traveling in Germany, Holland and England (where he met Frederik Ruysch), he returned to Wittenberg, becoming associate professor in 1719, full professor of anatomy in 1732, and later professor of therapy in 1746. Vater published works in anatomy as well as chemistry, botany, pharmacology and gynecology. He is best known for describing the hepatopancreatic ampulla—the junction where the pancreatic duct meets the common bile duct, now called the ampulla of Vater. In 1719 he also noted oval, concentric structures around nerve endings in the skin, 1–4 mm long, which he called papillae nervae. These were later recognized as mechanoreceptors by Filippo Pacini in 1831 and are sometimes called Pacinian or Vater-Pacini corpuscles. The name is also attached to Vater’s fold, a mucous membrane fold in the duodenum above the ampulla.