Bartholin's glands were first described in the 17th century by the Danish anatomist Caspar Bartholin the Younger (1655–1738).
Thomas Bartholin | Rasmus Bartholin | Caspar Bartholin the Elder | Pyramidal lobe of thyroid gland (lobus pyramidalis glandulae thyroideae) | Pyramidal lobe of thyroid gland | Gland of Zeis | Gland | gland | Duvernoy's gland | Caspar Bartholin the Younger | Caspar Bartholin |
The diversification of Hymenoptera took place in the Cretaceous and the gland may have developed at about this time (200 million years ago) as it is present in all three groups of Apocrita, the wasps, bees and ants.
Duvernoy's gland, a gland found in some snakes named for French zoologist Georges Louis Duvernoy
Gustav Bartholin Hagen was born on 12 February 1873 in Copenhagen, the son of Sophus Hagen, a composer and music editor, and Serine Johanne Frederikke Klingsey.
Instead, Danish anatomist Caspar Bartholin credits Franciscus Sylvius with the discovery, and Bartholin's son Thomas named it the Sylvian fissure in the 1641 edition of the textbook Institutiones anatomicae.
While the glands were first described by the French surgeon Alphonse Guérin (1816-1895), they were named after the Scottish gynaecologist Alexander Skene, who wrote about it in Western medical literature.
Von Ebner's glands (also called gustatory glands) are named after Anton Gilbert Victor von Ebner, Ritter von Rosenstein, who was an Austrian histologist.