Berthold Kern

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Berthold Kern (born January 5, 1911 in Kiel , † October 16, 1995 in Stuttgart ) was a German internist and cardiologist .

family

Kern's grandfather was the philosopher Eduard von Hartmann (1842–1906). His father was the historian Fritz Kern (1884–1950). His mother Bertha von Hartmann was the daughter of Eduard von Hartmann. Berthold Kern had two sisters. His daughter Waltraud Kern-Benz works as a doctor in Stuttgart.

education and profession

Kern spent childhood and youth in Kronberg (Taunus) and Bonn. He completed his high school with the Abitur in Bad Godesberg . He studied medicine in Vienna and Königsberg, where Herbert Assmann (1882–1950) had been responsible for internal medicine from 1931 and was head of the university clinic. At the University of Freiburg , Kern met the pathologist Franz Büchner (1895–1991), who had been the successor to Ludwig Aschoff (1866–1942) there as director of the pathological institute of the medical faculty from 1936 .

Berthold Kern passed the medical state examination in Freiburg in 1935 and was deployed as a troop doctor on the Eastern Front in Russia since 1941, including in the on-site hospital in Ulm. After the end of the war, Kern worked as a resident doctor, internist and cardiologist in his own practice in Stuttgart, 1946 to 1990.

Clinical medicine

In addition to providing medical care for his patients, Kern primarily devoted himself to cardiological issues, published books and more than 40 specialist articles. His main interest was the treatment of heart diseases such as heart failure and heart attacks with cardiac glycosides . In particular, he dealt intensively with the use of digitalis glycosides and strophanthin . In his work on oral strophanthin therapy, Kern explicitly referred to the pharmacologist Thomas Richard Fraser and the cardiovascular researchers Albert Fraenkel and Ernst Edens , who had dealt with the clinical application of intravenous strophanthin therapy.

In cooperation with Boehringer Mannheim , Kern developed a tablet preparation of g-strophanthin for sublingual use, which was introduced in 1949 under the name Strophoral . The preparation turned out to be surprisingly successful in medical prescription, but received controversial reviews from pharmacologists and clinicians. In his main work, The Orale Strophanthin Treatment , Kern explained in detail the benefits of oral strophanthin therapy for cardiac patients and developed an extensive application observation : from 1947 to 1967 he treated more than 15,000 cardiac patients in his practice with strophoral , and after 1967 a further 5000 patients.

Core difference between links insufficiency and legal insufficiency , which at that time was scientifically innovative and (especially regarding the medication to be elected) led many medical practitioners to most clinicians and pharmaceutical companies to a long-running, violent controversy. For Kern, strophanthin was the drug of choice for the prevention of myocardial infarction and for the treatment of left heart failure.

Like many other researchers, Kern was critical of the importance of coronary sclerosis for myocardial infarction. He advocated the thesis that when explaining ischemic conditions of the heart muscle (disproportion between oxygen demand and oxygen supply), not only the arterial oxygen supply to the myocardium but also the oxygen consumption of the heart controlled by the autonomic nervous system must be taken into account. Hans Selye , the creator of the stress concept, and other researchers demonstrated in the 1950s and 1960s that the excessive sympathetic activity causes an extreme increase in the heart's oxygen consumption, which leads to a lack of oxygen and the death of cardiac muscle cells. One of the declared opponents of this thesis was the Heidelberg professor of internal medicine Gotthard Schettler , who apparently also felt personally attacked by a series of articles on the subject of heart attacks in the lay press in 1971.

Works

  • with Margarete Kern Basics of Internal Medicine . F. Enke, Stuttgart 1946
  • Heart failure. System of their modes of creation, three manifestations, recognition and treatment in the ground plan . F. Enke, Stuttgart 1948
  • Oral strophanthin treatment. Medical study of its renewal and its influence on cardiology . F. Enke, Stuttgart 1951 pdf
  • The myocardial infarction. Its myocardial pathogenesis and prophylaxis, shown on the plan of the left myocardiology . KF Haug, Heidelberg 1969

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich R. Douwes, Claus-Peter Cremer-Etzold: in memoriam , obituary, unpublished, 1995.
  2. ↑ Eberhard J. Wormer : Strophanthin. Comeback of a heart remedy , Kopp, Rottenburg 2015, pp. 66–75
  3. ↑ Berthold Kern: The oral strophanthin treatment . Stuttgart 1951, dedication, S. V
  4. ↑ Berthold Kern: The oral strophanthin treatment . Stuttgart 1951
  5. ↑ Berthold Kern: To prevent infarction through myocardial treatment. Comparative success and death statistics as a contribution to the evaluation of various prophylactic measures . The country doctor (booklet) 24 (1968) 1146-1151 pdf
  6. ↑ Berthold and Margarete Kern: Fundamentals of internal medicine . Stuttgart 1946, pp. 54-64
  7. ↑ Hauke ​​Fürstenwerth, Strophanthin: the true story, chapter Der Strophoral-Streit , Leverkusen 2016
  8. ↑ G. Schimert: The therapy of coronary insufficiency in the light of a new consideration of the pathogenesis . Switzerland Med Wochenschr 81 (25) (1951) 598-603 pdf ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ Thomas von Randow: No heart attack for "colorful" readers . Die Zeit 40 (1971) pdf
personal data
SURNAME Kern, Berthold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cardiologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 5, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1995
Place of death Stuttgart