Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann

Karl Konrad Theodor Litzmann in 1848

Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann (born October 7, 1815 in Gadebusch , † February 24, 1890 in Berlin ) was a doctor and professor of gynecology and obstetrics in Kiel .

Career

Carl Litzmann was the son of Gadebusch's district physician Heinrich Carl Friedrich Litzmann (* 1781 in Plau , † 1864 in Gadebusch). He attended the Katharineum in Lübeck until he graduated from high school Michaelis in 1834 and began his medical studies in Berlin more at the request of his father than out of his own interest. Peter Krukenberg , one of the most important clinicians of his time, was able to finally win over the student Litzmann to the profession of doctor and put aside his own serious poetic plans for the future. A private obstetric course with the gynecologist Joseph d'Outrepont set the trend for his career.

As early as 1840 he completed his habilitation with a font De arteritide written in Latin . In the years that followed, he held lectures in Halle on physiology and pathology of the nervous system , forensic medicine, physiology of women, the theory of obstetrics and obstetric auscultation and drawing in Halle . He also taught medical anthropology to non-medical professionals with case demonstrations.

In 1844, after his marriage, he was appointed to Greifswald as associate professor for theoretical medicine, and two years later he became dean . From this period, the work on the "Physiology of pregnancy and the female organism in general" should be emphasized. He occupies it and u. a. the periodicity of menstruation and the reflective nature and dependence of uterine bleeding on the growth of follicles in the ovary. Despite extensive scientific studies, the work in the context of his professorship did not satisfy him much. So he accepted the call to Kiel mediated by his friend Wilhelm Johann Julius Planck , Max Planck's father , in 1849. In the following year his daughter Anna was born, who later became active as a writer Anna Behrens . His son Berthold Litzmann was born in Kiel in 1857; he became known as a literary historian and Germanist.

Work at the Kiel building

After participating in the independence movement, the University of Kiel was in a bad reputation with the Danish authorities. Almost any form of financial support was missing for the building with its unsustainable hygienic conditions. After the puerperal fever catastrophes , the institution's existence was seriously threatened. Despite this difficult initial situation, Litzmann managed to build the new building in Kiel after five years of struggling to find plans, cost estimates and funds. His successor Richard Werth later wrote: “Anyone who has not read this correspondence ... has no idea of ​​the fire and fearlessness with which this apparently calm, peace-loving man, who picks up every violent excitement, for a cause close to his heart can occur. " .

Litzmann was fascinated by Michaelis's pelvic research and saw it as an obligatory legacy. He also published works such as "The shapes of the pelvis ... according to his own observations and investigations, together with an appendix on osteomalacia" . Posterior asynclitism is still common in obstetrics today under the term "Litzmann's obliquity" . In 1884, Litzmann dedicated his comprehensive monograph “Birth in a narrow pelvis according to his own observations and investigations” to the memory of Gustav Adolf Michaelis (1798–1848) . In one very crucial point he did not follow Michaelis for the time being: in the acceptance and application of Semmelweis' teachings about childbed fever. It was not until 1874 that Litzmann finally recognized the causality after repeated epidemics with deaths. One of his interns, who had just performed a dissection , then examined a woman who had recently given birth. She promptly fell ill and died. Mentally structured differently than Michaelis, Litzmann did not break down with feelings of guilt, but instead directed his creative power to operative gynecology. Since the introduction of ether and chloroform anesthesia in 1847, completely new possibilities have opened up.

Cultural and literary interests

A lively intellectual exchange took place in Litzmann's house. The patient of the surgeon Friedrich von Esmarch , Clara Schumann, was an asset to the group that met there . Clara Schumann occasionally came to Kiel because of an arm illness and delighted her friends who lived here with house concerts at the Litzmanns.

In 1885 Litzmann retired to Berlin in order to devote himself to his literary inclinations. He was a friend of Emanuel Geibel and an admirer of Friedrich Hölderlin . He created the first edition of Hölderlin's letters, fundamentally both in terms of the number of letters, which has only been increased slightly since then, and in terms of dating. The publication earned him an honorary doctorate.

Works

• The shapes of the pelvis, especially the narrow female pelvis, according to our own observations and investigations, along with an appendix on osteomalacia , Berlin: Reimer 1861 ( digital copy )
• Emanuel Giebel. From memories, letters and diaries , Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz 1887 ( digitized version )
• Friedrich Hölderlin's life. In letters from and to Hölderlin , Berlin: Wilhelm Hertz 1890 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Axel Wilhelmi : The Mecklenburg doctors from the oldest times to the present. A new edition, completion and continuation of the Dr. med. A. Blanck's collective work. Schwerin 1901, p. 78, no.376
2. ^ Hermann Genzken: The Abitur graduates of the Katharineum zu Lübeck (grammar school and secondary school) from Easter 1807 to 1907. Borchers, Lübeck 1907. (Supplement to the school program 1907), digitized version , University and State Library Düsseldorf , No. 314

literature

• Erhart Kahle:  Litzmann, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 713 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Jürgen Knobloch: Bio and ergographical contributions to Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann (1815–1890). Perspectives on gynecology in Kiel in the 19th century. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1975, ISBN 3-529-06213-8 .
• Franz von Winckel:  Litzmann, Carl . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 50-52.
• Litzmann, Carl Conrad Theodor . In: Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania? A dictionary of persons . Edition Temmen, Bremen 1995, ISBN 3-86108-282-9 , p. 264.
• Jochen Schmidt : Hölderlin in the 20th century. Reception and edition. In: Gerhard Kurz, Valérie Lawitschka, Jürgen Wertheimer (eds.): Hölderlin and the modern. An inventory. Attempto Verlag, Tübingen 1995. ISBN 3-89308-224-7 , pp. 105-125.

Web links

• Literature by and about Carl Conrad Theodor Litzmann in the catalog of the German National Library