Adam Hammer

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Adam Hammer when he was younger

Johann Adam Hammer (born December 27, 1818 in Mingolsheim ; † August 4, 1878 in Bad Griesbach in the Black Forest ) was a military doctor, surgeon , professor , revolutionary participant, 1848er , emigrant , Republican party congress member in Missouri , founder of several medical colleges in St. Louis , medical director and instructor. He was the first doctor in Mannheim to perform an operation and childbirth under anesthesia in 1847 , as well as the first doctor ever to diagnose a heart attack in a living person in 1876 .

family

Adam was born the first of eleven children. His father Wilhelm was a geometer by trade and a gunner during the war , his mother's name was Margaretha nee Ganther.

On February 15, 1846, the Catholic Adam married the Protestant Helene Leip from Alzey in Mannheim . The marriage remained childless.

Life

In Europe

Hammer attended the grand ducal high school in Bruchsal from 1830 to 1837 . He then studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg until 1842 . His father, Wilhelm Hammer, emigrated to the United States with four children in 1839 after losing his job. Adam Hammer's grandparents Wilhelm (at the age of 70) and Magdalena followed Wilhelm to the United States in Ohio a year later .

1842–1845 Hammer was a military doctor in the Mannheim Dragoon Regiment "von Freystedt No. 2" before he ran a private medical practice in Mannheim from 1845–1848.

In 1845 he became a co-founder of the “ German Catholic Community of Mannheim ”, and a year later he was registered as a founding member of the Mannheim gymnastics club. In the same year, on November 8, 1846, Hammer founded the "Association for the Promotion of the Welfare of the Working Class" alongside Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve

On February 10, 1847, he was the first doctor in Mannheim (the third in Germany) to perform a (sulfur) anesthetic ether operation. Eight days later, on February 18, 1847, he successfully used the anesthetic to ensure a painless birth . In 1847 he also became a military doctor in the Swiss Sonderbund War . After the defeat of the conservative cantons and the dissolution of the Sonderbund, there was famine in the winter of 1847. In addition, the burgeoning political unrest led to the March Revolution of 1848.

In the Baden Revolution was Hammer captain in a Mannheim volunteer corps and adjutant of the commandant Franz Sigel . In March 1848, together with Franz Sigel and Gustav Struve, he called on the soldiers of the Mannheim garrison to desert so that they could not be used against the Freikorps. Shortly before the Hecker coup (April 1848), Hammer vehemently demanded the abolition of the monarchy and the introduction of a democratic republic at a meeting of the determined republicans, the “whole” . Because of this agitation , Hammer had to leave Mannheim in April 1848 and flee to Strasbourg , where he was a board member of a republican refugee committee. To avoid arrest , he and Hecker emigrated from Strasbourg to the English port of Southampton on September 5, 1848, like many other Forty-Eighters . The crossing to the United States took place on September 20 with the steamship "Hermann". After two weeks at sea, he arrived in New York City on October 4, 1848 .

In America

Hammer settled in St. Louis, Missouri, on October 28, 1848, and opened a medical practice. From 1850 to 1872 he was a member of the “St. Louis Medical Society ". He used a stay in Europe in 1853 to study at the universities of Paris ( doctorate ) and Würzburg .

In 1854 Hammer joined the newly formed " Republican Party " of the United States. In his adopted home of St. Louis, he founded several medical colleges (including a Humboldt Institute), but they did not last long. Until 1866 he devoted himself to the education and training of doctors. So he was 1855-1856 at the St. Louis College of Medical and Natural Sciences. He then worked in the Hospital for the Poor in St. Louis from 1856–1861.

The historic
Anheuser-Busch brewery

In December 1857 Adam Hammer's brothers (Karl and Philipp) acquired the Bavarian Brewery , founded by Georg Schneider in 1852 , which was in financial difficulties. In 1858 they initially took on Adam Hammer as a partner; in November of the same year they left the brewery to him completely. As the sole owner, Hammer quickly realized that he could only lead the company to continued success with a partner. He found a partner in Dominic Urban, whereupon the brewery operated under the name "Hammer und Urban". Together they brought the brewery up to date with the latest technology. Hammer and Urban were able to easily obtain the necessary loans thanks to their good connections with the financial world in St. Louis. At the end of 1859 the beer output was 3200 barrels (508 800 liters). However, the production of the beer exceeded demand, which led to bankruptcy in 1860. Eberhard Anheuser had previously provided the company with the then enormous amount of $ 90,000 as a loan, now bought up the entire brewery and made it a flourishing company. In 1879 the brewery was renamed Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association , in 1919 Anheuser-Busch ; With her branded beer Budweiser she later achieved worldwide fame.

In 1860 Hammer was a member of the delegation to the Republican National Convention in Chicago and was appointed "assistant elector" in the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidential candidate. Hammer campaigned vehemently for the existence of the Union. In addition, he deserves the credit for giving American medicine decisive impulses . Preserving the German language and culture in the USA was a matter close to his heart.

In the American Civil War , he was in April 1861 Lieutenant Colonel ( Lt. Col. ) of the 4th Missouri Regiment. In 1862 he joined the "St. Louis Emancipation Society". 1862-1865 he worked as a "Brigade surgeon" (military doctor) in the Union Army , at the same time he was the medical director of the "Marine Hospital" and the "Refuge Hospital" in St. Louis. After retiring from military service, he devoted himself to organizing hospitals .

From 1866 to 1869 he worked at the "Humboldt Medical 1 College St. Louis" before he was appointed professor at the "Missouri Medical College in St. Louis", where he stayed until 1872. Hammer led a secluded life in St. Louis from 1872 to 1876. Because of a protracted dispute with the "Medical Society" St. Louis, as whose president he served for several years, he left the United States disappointed like a number of his like- minded comrades and returned to Europe. In May 1876 he was the first to diagnose a heart attack in a living person in Vienna . In 1877 he returned to Germany and opened a surgical practice in Wiesbaden . Adam Hammer died on August 4, 1878 during a spa stay in Bad Griesbach (Black Forest).

Medical pioneering work

  • From 1847 he successfully used anesthesia ether for operations and used anesthesia for the first painless delivery; further interventions under anesthesia followed.
  • Eye Surgery: In the medical history of the American Civil War , only two such operations have survived.
  • In 1863 he did not hesitate to apply new medical knowledge immediately. He cured a patient suffering from diphtheria according to the method of a French doctor.
  • When checking suspicion of syphilis , he diagnosed an improper vaccination in more than 200 cases . Since antiseptic agents were completely lacking at that time and bacteriology was still being researched at that time , its performance is to be assessed even higher.
  • In 1864 Adam Hammer drew attention to himself with a brilliant performance. He put an artificial anus for a soldier after its natural function could not be restored due to a serious intestinal injury. Four doctors had already performed such an operation before; however, unlike Hammer, the patients did not survive.
  • Of 51 statistically recorded amputations that Hammer performed as a military surgeon during the civil war, only two patients died. A number of other amputations, he says, were all successful. Such a low mortality rate is not described in the medical literature prior to 1864 .
  • In Vienna in May 1876 he was the first to diagnose a heart attack in a living person .

Works

  • The use of sulfur ether in general and especially during childbirth. Mannheim 1847
  • On medical education. In: Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Missouri Volume 2, 1852, pages 81-90
  • A case of thrombotic occlusion of one of the coronary arteries of the heart .

literature

  • Werner Streckfuß: Adam Hammer - A Baden forty-eight . Heimatverein Kraichgau , ISBN 3-921214-15-7 .
  • James M. Ball: Dr. Adam Hammer, Surgeon and Apostle of Higher Medical Education . In: Journal Missouri State Medical Association . Volume 6, 1909, pp. 155–177.
  • Ernst D. Kargau: The German Element in St. Louis , 1893, St. Louis, (Reprint from 1943) Clearfield Company Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, 2000: ISBN 0-8063-4950-6
  • Peter Lang: The Rothe Doktor von Chicago- a German-American emigrant fate , European publishing house of the sciences, Frankfurt / Main, 2003, ISBN 3-631-39635-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ From the book "Adam Hammer - Ein Baden Forty-Eight" page 271
  2. ^ Church book Mingolsheim 1818–1837
  3. ↑ Among other things, he attended the lectures of the surgeon Chelius , the gynecologist Naegele and the anatomist Tiedemann .
  4. ↑ Conviction for inciting a rebellion against state authority with a subsequent 18-month correctional house sentence (reduced prison sentence). This came about because Wilhelm Hammer rebelled against the "extremely brutal, haughty, presumptuous and arbitrary behavior of the local governor towards his subordinates" .
  5. ↑ With them, his two uncles Johann Adam and Michael Hammer emigrated.
  6. ↑ 1845 and 1846 were years with bad harvests and a potato epidemic turned into an economic crisis.
  7. ↑ Hammer explained in this regard in the evening newspaper: "As far as I know, this attempt has only been made once by a Scottish doctor, and also with luck. "
  8. ↑ MAZ No. 225, September 20, 1848, p. 897; Der Deutsche Pionier 10 (1878), p. 242; see. Andreas Lück (1979), p. 226 Source: Book Adam Hammer p. 164.
  9. ↑ "The Extra Sun" made sure that the arrival of Hammer and Hecker became known in a special edition. Both were received with their companions in the “City Hall” by the New York mayor and the leaders of the German colony. Source: Rheinische Blätter, No. 124, December 1, 1848, p. 494; AGR 26.4 (1960); p. 19. - Book "Adam Hammer" p. 164.
  10. ^ A) Adam Hammer, page 118; b) Ronald J. Plavchan: A History of Anheuser-Busch , 1852-1933.
  11. ↑ Welcome to Anheuser-Busch Companies - History. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 2007, archived from the original on October 11, 2007 ; accessed on January 3, 2014 .
  12. ↑ George A, Otis / DL Huntington (1883), pp. 681f
  13. ↑ This method was first described in a medical journal. Charles Smart, 1888, p. 751.
  14. ^ Google Books
  15. ↑ Wiener Medical Wochenschrift, Volume 28 (February 2, 1878) No. 5; Spp. 97-102.
  16. ^ Google Books
  17. ^ Google Books
personal data
SURNAME Hammer, Adam
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hammer, Johann Adam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Military doctor, revolutionist
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Mingolsheim
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1878
Place of death Bad Griesbach in the Black Forest