Karl Theodor Paul Polykarpus Axenfeld (24 June 1867 – 29 July 1930) was a German ophthalmologist born in Smyrna (İzmir) in the Ottoman Empire to a German minister, who was a Jewish convert to Christianity and served as missionary in Asia Minor.[1] As a child his family moved back to Germany, settling in the town of Godesberg.
He received his medical doctorate in 1890 from the University of Marburg. In 1896 he became an assistant to Wilhelm Uhthoff (1853–1927) at Breslau, and during the following year, was appointed director of the university eye clinic in Rostock. In 1901 he attained the chair of ophthalmology in Freiburg, where he remained until his death in 1930. In 1925 he was chosen as president of the German Ophthalmological Society (Deutsche ophthalmologische Gesellschaft).