Anton Friedrich von Tröltsch

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Anton Friedrich Freiherr von Tröltsch (born April 3, 1829 in Schwabach ; † January 9, 1890 in Würzburg ) was a doctor , otologist and professor of ear medicine (otiatry) at the University of Würzburg .

Anton Friedrich von Tröltsch (engraving from home , January 23, 1869)

Life

Anton von Tröltsch came from a family based in Franconia , from which lawyers in the Bavarian civil service emerged. He was the tenth child of the district judge and later appellate judge Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Tröltsch (1780–1851) and his wife Susanne, née Freiin Haller von Hallerstein († 1840). Because of the merits of an ancestor, the family was raised to hereditary baron status in 1790 .

After years of school in Bamberg and Augsburg put Tröltsch 1847 in Nuremberg , the High School , and studied law in Erlangen . He became a member of the student association of the "gray" and took part as their representative in the revolutionary year of 1848 at the festival at the Wartburg . After two scientific semesters in Munich , he began studying medicine in Würzburg in 1849 , took the medical exam in 1853 and did his doctorate with case studies of the treatment of complicated bone fractures without amputation , a surgical therapy that was still controversial at the time .

For his work as a doctor during the cholera epidemic in Munich in 1854 received from Tröltsch a scholarship which allowed him to first in Berlin with Albrecht von Graefe and Prague with Carl Ferdinand von Arlt in ophthalmology develop. In 1855 he sat in Dublin , Glasgow and London . There he learned from Joseph Toynbee and William Wilde (1815–1876) - Wilde was, as was often to be found at the time, both ear and ophthalmologist - know British otolaryngology, whose advanced level of knowledge impressed him and prompted him to turn to this field. During a stay in Paris in the winter of 1855/56 he presented a new concave mirror with a central viewing hole.

Back in Würzburg, he bridged the waiting time until approval as a general practitioner with anatomical studies and developed a dissection technique to remove the entire auditory organ from the corpse undamaged. In the course of these studies he succeeded in demonstrating that otitis media in children are far more common than previously assumed and that hearing impairments are often caused by chronic inflammation of the middle ear and defect healing. On February 9, 1857 he began to practice, initially as an ophthalmologist and ear doctor, when more and more ear patients came to him due to his reputation, he soon devoted himself mainly to ear diseases.

On October 8, 1857 Tröltsch married Auguste Julie Bauer (1833–1908) from Bamberg. He had three daughters with her, the second daughter Clara Aliena Elisabetha (* 1861) married his favorite student Josef Georg Wagenhäuser (* April 19, 1852 in Würzburg; † April 9, 1931 in Tübingen) in 1883 .

At the request of colleagues, Tröltsch began to teach, initially privately and soon at the university. He completed his habilitation on March 2, 1861 and was given a formal teaching position. The first edition of his textbook appeared in 1862, and in 1864 the first volume of the Archive for Ear Medicine , of which he was responsible editor until 1873. On June 25, 1864 he was appointed associate professor. In 1867 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

During the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Tröltsch volunteered to be a medical companion for transporting the wounded.

The otiatric outpatient clinic was founded in 1879, and Tröltsch was now able to treat the sick in the rooms of the university clinic together with assistants and to regularly use them for practical instruction of the students.

From 1877 Tröltsch suffered from multiple sclerosis and was increasingly prevented from practicing and teaching. In 1883 he handed over the management of the polyclinic to Wilhelm Kirchner , and in 1886 he had to close his private practice. He died as a royal councilor of influenza on January 9, 1890 and is buried in the university's grave of honor in the Würzburg main cemetery.

Services

The concave mirror with a central viewing hole developed by Tröltsch has a focal length that corresponds to the spatial relationships of the external auditory canal . The instrument, which is usually worn on a headband, together with an ear speculum, makes it easier to examine the ear canal and eardrum in reflected light and opens up new possibilities for diagnosing diseases of the ear. Until then, catheterization of the Eustachi tube and auscultation as well as inspection of the ear canal in direct light were mainly used. The otoscope is next to the stethoscope for over a hundred years a commonly used symbol for the medical profession.

Tröltsch's lasting merit is to make the results of new pathological-anatomical research, which he also actively conducts, fruitful for practical implementation in diagnostics and nosology with the help of the examination methods he has improved . Together with the more surgically active Hermann Schwartze in Halle (Saale) and Adam Politzer in Vienna , known for the development of new therapeutic methods , Tröltsch is one of the founders of modern ear medicine in German-speaking countries. It lays the foundations for researching ear diseases using scientific methods and for ear medicine to be recognized as an independent surgical subject. At a time when, for example, ear infections are still very often not recognized or treated with inadequate methods and as a result chronic deafness and hearing loss are the predominant diseases of all age groups in the patient population of an ear doctor, the new diagnostic and therapeutic methods are quickly proving their usefulness and are rapidly spreading.

Tröltsch's teaching and publication activities had a great influence on the further development of the field, in particular his textbook on ear diseases and the co-founding and co-editing, together with Schwartze and Politzer, the specialist journal Archiv für Ohrheilkunde contribute to this. The textbook appeared in a total of seven editions by 1881 and was translated into English ( The surgical diseases of the ear ) in 1864 and into French ( Traité pratique des maladies de l'oreille ) in 1870 by his student Abraham Kuhn . The archive appears to this day, since 2004 under the title European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology and head & neck ( ISSN 0937-4477 ). Several university professors and founders of university ear clinics are Tröltsch's students, including Friedrich Bezold in Munich, Kurd Bürkner in Göttingen , Abraham Kuhn in Strasbourg , Dagobert Schwabach in Berlin, Josef Georg Wagenhäuser in Tübingen and his successor in Würzburg Wilhelm Kirchner .  

Two pocket-like anatomical structures on the tympanic membrane described by Tröltsch for the first time are named after him, Recessus anterior membranae tympanicae and Recessus posterior membranae tympanicae are also called anterior and posterior Tröltsch pockets . The knee- shaped hook tweezers he developed for manipulation in the external auditory canal are still manufactured and used unchanged today, and they also bear his name.

The German Society for Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine, Head and Neck Surgery awards the Anton von Tröltsch Prize for outstanding scientific achievements in the field of ear, nose and throat medicine.

Quote

I wish to make the general conviction that ear medicine is also capable of an exact conception to a high degree, and that it is therefore worth the effort in a scientific respect to deal with diseases of the auditory organ. Once this point of view has broken through, it will soon be generally recognized that the physician can help and intervene at least as effectively as is the case with the majority of the other ailments of the human race. An exact knowledge of the parts is, however, necessary here, as everywhere, first. May I have succeeded in doing something to educate practitioners and to alleviate the prejudices that weigh on this area!
Anton v. Tröltsch: The anatomy of the ear in its application to practice and the diseases of the auditory organ. Contributions to the scientific justification of ear medicine. Pro venia legendi. Stahel Würzburg 1861 pp. VII – VIII, cit. n. ( Lit .: Baudach, 1999, pp. 22-23).

Fonts (selection)

  • The examination of the hearing organ on the corpse. In: Virchow's archive. 3/1858, p. 513.
  • Examination of the ear canal and eardrum. Its meaning. Criticism of previous research methods and specification of a new one. In: German Clinic Berlin. 12/1860.
  • A case of reaming the mastoid process in otitis interna with remarks about this operation. In: Virchow's archive. Volume 21, 1861, pp. 295-314.
  • The anatomy of the ear as applied to the practice and diseases of the auditory organ. Wuerzburg 1861.
  • Textbook of ear diseases. Wuerzburg 1862.
  • The diseases of the ear, their diagnosis and treatment: a text-book of aural surgery in the form of academical lectures by Anton von Tröltsch. Translated from German and published by DB St. John Roosa. William Wood, New York 1864.

literature

  • Ruthard Baudach: Anton Friedrich Freiherr von Tröltsch, founder of modern ear medicine on the European mainland. Dissertation. (= Würzburg medical historical research. Volume 67). Würzburg 1999, ISBN 3-8260-1733-1 .
  • Christian von Deuster: From the beginnings of ear, nose and throat medicine in Würzburg. In: Peter Baumgart (Ed.): Four hundred years of the University of Würzburg. A commemorative publication. Degener & Co. (Gerhard Gessner), Neustadt an der Aisch 1982 (= sources and contributions to the history of the University of Würzburg. Volume 6), ISBN 3-7686-9062-8 , pp. 871–890; here: pp. 878–882.
  • Julius Pagel :  Troeltsch, Anton Friedrich Freiherr von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 38, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, p. 636.
  • DG Pappas: Anton Friedrich von Tröltsch. The beginning of otology in Germany. In: Ear, Nose & Throat Journal. Volume 75, 1996, p. 650 f.
  • Barbara I. Tshisuaka: Tröltsch, Anton Friedrich Baron von. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1420 f.

Web links

Commons : Anton Friedrich von Tröltsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wilhelm Kirchner: Speech in memory of the royal councilor and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Anton Friedrich Frhr. v. Tröltsch […] spoken […] on May 10, 1890 […]. In: Meeting reports of the Physico-Medical Society. Würzburg 1890, pp. 73-85.
  2. ↑ einBlick : Famous otologist .
  3. ^ Anton von Tröltsch Prize of the German Society for Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine, Head and Neck Surgery (hno.org); Retrieved June 9, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Tröltsch, Anton Friedrich von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tröltsch, Anton Friedrich Freiherr von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ENT doctor
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwabach
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1890
Place of death Wurzburg