Alexander Pagenstecher (ophthalmologist)

Alexander Pagenstecher

Friedrich Hermann Alexander Pagenstecher (born April 21, 1828 in Wallau ; † December 31, 1879 in Wiesbaden ) was a German ophthalmologist and founder of the ophthalmic institute in Wiesbaden.

family

He was the son of Oberforstrat Friedrich Pagenstecher (1793-1865) from Dillenburg and Charlotte, née Schenk (1808-1870).

In 1853 Pagenstecher married Johanna Heller, daughter of a botany professor from Würzburg. The couple had four children (two daughters and two sons).

Pagenstecher died as a result of injuries sustained in a hunting accident with his own rifle near the Platte hunting lodge in Wiesbaden. He was buried in the old cemetery in Wiesbaden.

education and profession

After graduating from secondary school and high school, Pagenstecher studied medicine in Gießen , Heidelberg and Würzburg (among others with Rudolf Virchow ) from 1846 , where he received his doctorate (Dr. med.) In 1849. Since 1847 he was a member of the Corps Teutonia Giessen and Nassovia Heidelberg . After the medical state examination in 1850 in Wiesbaden he went the following year to Paris to there Ophthalmology study.

From 1852 Pagenstecher worked in Wiesbaden as an assistant at the Bürgerhospital there, opened a private practice for ophthalmology in 1853 and met well-known German ophthalmologists such as Albrecht von Graefe and Johann Friedrich Horner on study trips to Zurich , London and Berlin . In 1856 he founded the Wiesbaden ophthalmic institute, which he headed as director until the end of his life.

As a specialist hospital that also treated penniless eye patients free of charge, the facility was groundbreaking and internationally recognized. Most of the funding came from donations.

power

Pagenstecher was a world-renowned surgeon, especially in the field of cataracts and glaucoma - he performed around 2000 cataract operations himself. Pagenstecher is considered the inventor of the intra-capsular surgical removal of the eye lens with a special spoon instrument (1866). He also described the surgical correction of the lower eyelid ( ptosis ) with double subcutaneous sutures at brow level. The yellow precipitate ointment he developed was used worldwide.

From 1861 to 1866 he acted as editor of the clinical observations from the Wiesbaden ophthalmic institute .

Works

• Clinical observations from the ophthalmological institution in Wiesbaden (with T. Sämisch and Arnold Pagenstecher). 1861/62
• On the extraction of the cataract from the unopened capsule through the scleral incision . Wiesbaden 1866

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kösener corps lists 1910, 58 , 107; 117 , 152

literature

• Hermann Pagenstecher:  Pagenstecher, Friedrich Hermann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 67.
• Julius Pagel : Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of the 19th century. Berlin 1901, p. 1247
• A. Herrmann: Graves of famous people who have become known in public life in the Wiesbaden cemeteries. Wiesbaden 1928, p. 56
• August Hirsch (Hrsg.): Biographical lexicon of the outstanding doctors of all times and peoples. 1929-1935, Vol. 4, p. 473
• Nassau Life Pictures 2 (1943) 237–243
• A. Hildebrand: The portrait: Alexander Pagenstecher. In: Wiesbaden International 2 (1978)
• The legacy of the Mattiaca. Personalities of the city history of Wiesbaden. 1992, pp. 173-175
• German Biographical Encyclopedia. Vol. 7, p. 548
• Eberhard J. Wormer :  Pagenstecher, Alexander. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 2 f. ( Digitized version ).