German pathologist, best known for his descriptions of two disorders, each called Recklinghausen's disease: multiple neurofibromatosis (1882), characterized by numerous skin tumours associated with areas of pigmentation, and osteitis fibrosa cystica (1891), a degeneration of the skeleton caused by a tumour of the parathyroid gland.

A student of the noted German pathologist Rudolf Virchow at the University of Berlin (1855–61), Recklinghausen served as professor of pathology at the universities of Königsberg (1865), Würzburg (1866–72), and Strasbourg (1872–1906). He also rendered excellent descriptions of the smallest lymph channels in connective tissue (canals of Recklinghausen; 1862) and stones found in the pancreas in cases of diabetes (1864). In 1889 he gave the name hemochromatosis to a metabolic disorder characterized by deposition of excess iron in the tissues, especially in the liver.