Martin Rathke

Martin Heinrich Rathke (25 August 1793, Danzig – 3 September 1860, Königsberg) was a German embryologist and anatomist.

Along with Karl Ernst von Baer and Christian Heinrich Pander, he is recognized as one of the founders of modern embryology.

In 1839, while based in Königsberg, he travelled to Scandinavia, where he conducted studies of marine organisms.

He was the first to describe the brachial clefts and gill arches in the embryos of mammals and birds.

[4] He also first described in 1839 the embryonic structure, now known as Rathke's pouch, from which the anterior lobe of the pituitary gland develops.