Lebert was born in
Breslau. He studied medicine and the natural sciences first in Berlin and later in
Zürich under
Johann Lukas Schönlein. After he received his medical doctorate (Zürich, 1834), he traveled throughout Switzerland, studying botany. For the next year and a half he studied in Paris, particularly under
Baron Guillaume Dupuytren and
Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis. In 1838 he settled in
Bex, later changing between Bex and Paris. From 1842 to 1845 he worked mainly in
comparative anatomy, which had interested him during his travels as a student on the coast of
Normandy and the
Channel Islands with
Charles-Philippe Robin. On a government assignment, he collected specimens for
Musée Orfila. After a stay in Berlin during the winter of 1845–1846 Lebert settled in Paris, where he devoted his efforts to both his practice and scientific work. In 1853 he accepted an invitation to become professor of clinical medicine in Zürich, and six years later he moved on to
Breslau, where he held the same job. In 1862, he was elected as a member of the
American Philosophical Society. In 1874 he returned to
Bex, Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life. Lebert was among the first to use the microscope in pathological anatomy, and thus contributed importantly to both
pathology and clinical medicine. == Selected writings ==