Alfred Sternthal

Alfred Sternthal (born September 25, 1862 in Koethen ; died April 24, 1942 in Chicago ) was a dermatologist , pioneer of dermatological radiation therapy and public health advocate.

Live and act

Alfred Sternthal was the son of the wine merchant Hermann Sternthal and Ida Adelheid Sternthal. A year after his birth, his parents moved to Leipzig with his brother Oscar , while Alfred stayed with his father's adoptive parents. In 1868 he started school at the Köthen grammar school. When his adoptive grandfather died in 1871, Alfred, then nine years old, moved to his parents' home in Leipzig, where he graduated from high school in 1882. As early as 1879 his father emigrated to the USA for professional reasons , his mother and his youngest brother Felix followed a little later. Alfred and his brother Oscar stayed in Germany, where Alfred studied medicine . Oscar became an actor .

During his studies, Alfred also met his friends Martha Löwenstein (born 1858) and Paula Edelstein (born 1869) - the two most important women in his life. In November 1886 he finished his studies, on February 28 of the next year he got his doctorate , in the summer of the same year he opened a practice at Damm 12 in Braunschweig and got engaged to Martha. The wedding took place on November 22, 1887.

Their first child, Friedrich Salomon Sternthal, was born on November 27, 1889. Their daughter Ilse Lea Sternthal was born on November 16, 1895. In the same year he was denied the management of the state dermatological hospital because of his Jewish religion.

In 1897 his parents returned to Braunschweig from the USA, while his brother Felix stayed in the USA. Alfred joined the German Association for Natural Sciences in September and took care of the organization of the section event for dermatologists as part of the “69. Assembly of German naturalists and doctors ”. He also introduced radiation therapy in Braunschweig that year.

In 1900, together with the glass instrument maker Richard Müller-Uri , he worked on a patent DRGM 115874 lupus tube for electrotherapeutic treatments, with the help of which it was possible to direct the radiation to areas of the body that are difficult to access.

Alfred began in 1902 with public education in z. B. Schools or churches to fight sexually transmitted diseases long before sex education became an integral part of the school curriculum. He was involved both in Braunschweig and nationwide in organizations to fight venereal diseases.

In 1905 Alfred was elected senior physician at the Red Cross Hospital in Braunschweig. After moving several times within Braunschweig, the family bought a villa at Hennebergstrasse 14 in 1908, where he lived until they emigrated.

He was given the title of Medical Councilor in 1911 , but that was overshadowed by Martha's death on July 2nd. Paula Edelstein, who had been friends with the family since studying together, moved in with you in December to take care of the two children.

On August 4, 1914, Alfred became engaged to Paula and married her on September 27 of the same year. In 1914 he also built a reserve hospital for sexually ill soldiers on Karlstrasse. In 1918 he was supposed to be appointed professor , but that was lost in the chaos of the end of the war. Nevertheless he was elected chairman of the Society for Natural Sciences in 1932, which he had to give up the following year, as well as many other activities, due to the anti-Jewish measures of the National Socialists .

In July 1936 Paula and Alfred emigrated to the USA (25 E Washington Street, Chicago), where his brother was still living and Ilse and her family had already moved there in January. They sold their house and inventory and had the most important things shipped to Chicago. There Alfred was accepted into the "Chicago Dermatology Society".

On January 10, 1942, Paula died of two heart attacks, three months later Alfred also died on April 24 of a tumor in the abdomen.

literature

• Reinhard Bein : Eternal House. Jewish cemeteries in the city and country of Braunschweig. Braunschweig 2004, ISBN 3-925268-24-3 .
• Bert Bilzer and Richard Moderhack (eds.): BRUNSVICENSIA JUDAICA. Memorial book for the Jewish fellow citizens of the city of Braunschweig 1933–1945. in: Braunschweig workpieces. Volume 35, Braunschweig 1966.
• Rudolf GA Fricke: “A wonderful person, an extremely capable doctor, our friend, but a Jew.” Alfred Sternthal (1862-1942) - fighter for public health care, pioneer of dermatological radiation therapy. In: Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte Volume 97 (for the year 2016), 2017, pp. 155–174.
• Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (Ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 .

Web links

• Literature by Alfred Sternthal in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence