Medicine and anatomy at Kiel
Flemming received his medical doctorate at Rostock in 1868 and later worked in Prague. He became professor of anatomy and histology at Kiel in 1876, holding the position until 1902. Tissue preparation and microscopic observation linked his anatomical work with his investigations of cell division.
Making dividing nuclei visible
In 1879 Flemming used aniline dyes on salamander embryonic cells to make threadlike nuclear material easier to distinguish. By comparing different stages of division, he followed how these structures appeared, arranged themselves and were distributed, rather than treating division only as a change in the cell’s external shape.
References: [1]
The cell-division study of 1882
Zellsubstanz, Kern und Zelltheilung organized these observations into a systematic account. Flemming noted the doubled appearance of chromosomes early in division and examined their distribution to daughter cells. This microscopic evidence became important to subsequent investigations of chromosome partitioning and the chromosomal theory of inheritance.
References: [1]