Franklin Paine Mall (September 28, 1862 – November 17, 1917) was an American anatomist and pathologist known for his research and literature in the fields of anatomy and embryology.

[7] During his time at Ann Arbor, Mall was drawn to three of his professors: Corydon Ford, Victor Vaughn, and Henry Sewall.

Mall's first project resulted in evidence that contradicted his mentor's position on the origin of the thymus, concluding that it develops from the endoderm instead of the ectoderm.

[2] With His' recommendation, Mall moved to Carl Ludwig's laboratory later that year, where he was assigned to study the blood vessels and lymphatics of the intestinal villus.

[12] Mall's collaboration with William Halstead on connective tissue led to the development of a new method of surgical suturing for the intestine.

[7] After a three-year stay in Baltimore, Mall accepted an offer from Stanley Hall for the position of adjunct professor of anatomy at Clark University.

While at Clark, Mall used the Born wax-plate method to create the first model of a human embryo in the United States.

Furthermore, Mall discovered the vasomotor nerves of the portal vein and founded an embryological research program at the university.

[8] Accepting a personal request from William H. Welch, Mall returned to Baltimore in 1893 and set up the Department of Anatomy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Prior to Mall's exploits, medical schools would only conduct dissections in cold weather to stymie the decomposition of cadavers.

[14] Mall introduced a revised curriculum that rarely involved lecture; instead, he believed that self-directed learning, facilitated by practical experience, was optimal.

The collective research spearheaded by Mall and his coworkers at the Department of Anatomy demonstrated an impact comparable to that of the surgical field.

[6] He supported the ideals of William H. Welch, Abraham Flexner, and John D. Rockefeller in their bid for the reform of medical education.

[15] However, Mall defended the importance of research, criticizing the implementation of policies that established full-time teaching faculty, treating their classroom obligations as an obstacle to scientific advancement.

The collection continued to grow while working with Wilhelm His, further expanding after his return to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

In a proposal to the Carnegie Institute for Science, Mall noted the sluggish advancements in anatomy and embryology compared to astronomy.

[16] In addition, Mall described the institute as a catalyst for the consolidation of embryonic collections which were scattered, poorly maintained, and possessed insufficient detail at that time.

[22] In early 1913, Mall received a preliminary grant of $6000 from the Carnegie Institute for Science to organize a broad-spectrum lab addressing scientific problems of varying disciplines.

[22] The nature of the work was intentionally designed to be impossible to achieve without collaboration; this was to demonstrate the validity of Mall's argument for an entire Department of Embryology.

[22] In the next year, Mall recruited four researchers and many other skilled technicians, modelers, and artists from Europe and the United States to carry out the process of staging the embryos.

[22] By the end of 1914, Mall successfully obtained a $15,000 grant to found and chair the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, that was to be housed in the Johns Hopkins University campus.

[23] In his 1905 publication in the American Journal of Anatomy, Mall was the first to show that both the main arteries and the primary veins of the embryo pig could be reached by via the delivery of India Ink directly into the blood vessels of the liver.