Early Life
Nissl was born in Frankenthal to Theodor Nissl and Maria Haas. Theodor taught Latin in a Catholic school and desired that Franz become a priest. However Franz entered the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to study medicine.
One of Nissl's university professors was Bernhard von Gudden. His assistant, Sigbert Josef Maria Ganser suggested that Nissl write an essay on the pathology of the cells of the cortex of the brain. When the medical faculty offered a competition for a prize in neurology in 1884, Nissl did undertake the brain-cortex study. He used alcohol as a fixative and developed a staining technique that allowed demonstrating several new nerve-cell constituents. Nissl won the prize, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on the same topic in 1885.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)