Curt Proskauer

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Curt Proskauer (born October 24, 1887 in Breslau ; † March 20, 1972 in New York City ) was a German-American dentist , medical historian and head of the Reich Institute for the History of Dentistry , where he created an international central office for the cataloging of dental historical objects. After fleeing Nazi Germany to the USA in 1938, he was curator of the Charles Henry Land Museum of the School of Dental and Oral Surgery at Columbia University in New York .

Life

Curt Proskauer was born as the son of the Breslau merchant Salo Proskauer and his wife Elma, née Mamlok (1865–1942). He attended the Friedrich-Gymnasium in Breslau and enrolled in 1906 in dentistry at the University of Breslau . After eight semesters of study, including one semester in Berlin, he passed the state examination in 1909. In the same year he started as an assistant dentist for Gustav Hesse in Jena .

He married Erna (née Cohn, 1891–1964), with whom he had two children. Henry (1915–2006) (originally Hans Gerhard), who after 1935 studied architecture under Otto Rudolf Salvisberg at the ETH Zurich and was already in Switzerland when the rest of the family had to flee for several months. He followed his family to the USA in April 1940. Proskauer's second son was Paul (1921 - August 9, 2014), who was a professor for German literature in New York.

Act

Neuralgic toothache. Lithograph by Alexander Willem Neuritis Huell. From the Iconographia Odontologica by Curt Proskauer, 1926
The tooth breaker on the street. From the Iconographia Odontologica by Curt Proskauer, 1926
"A wound doctor or barber" by Martin Engelsrecht. From the Iconographia Odontologica by Curt Proskauer, 1926

In 1911 Curt Priskauer established himself as a dentist in his hometown. Even during his studies he was particularly interested in the history of dentistry and dentists , which was to become Proskauer's life's work. In 1913 he published his first volume on the “Cultural History of Dentistry” and from 1919 to 1923 he was in charge of the historical collection of the Dental Institute of the Wroclaw University. He received his doctorate in 1920 on “The dental art of the Breslau city doctor Matthäus Gottfried Purmann (1648 to 1711)” and six years later he presented his main work “Iconographia odontologica”, a visual history of dentistry from antiquity to the present. By 1926, Proskauer had already built up a considerable collection of historical dental objects. As part of a search for premises, Proskauer, on the advice of Fritz H. Witt, sold his extensive historical dental collection to the Reich Association of Dentists in Germany in 1927 and became head of the Reich Institute for the History of Dentistry . His teacher Karl Partsch (1855-1932) provided him with space at the University of Wroclaw. Proskauer was supported in this by Fritz Linnert (1884-1949), who was then chairman of the German Association of Dentists . In 1931 he was commissioned by the Fédération Dentaire Internationale (FDI) to act as the “International Central Office for the Cataloging of Historical Objects from Dentistry”, the “Reich Institute for the History of Dentistry”. This came to an end after the retirement of Partsch, when Hermann Euler (1878–1961) was appointed, who was involved in the National Socialist “cleansing campaigns” at the university. As a Jew, he had to leave the institute in 1933 and - like all Jews - was increasingly sidelined. Proskauer was imprisoned as a so-called action Jew in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1938 after the Reichspogromnacht and was released five weeks later. During this time, the family organized their escape from persecution by the National Socialists . With the help of the Holy See , the Proskauers came to Rome and a few months later to the United States, where the reception by the Jewish community in Manhattan was initially very cold. In New York, the family was primarily perceived as a German rather than a Jewish refugee family. In 1940 he became a member of the Academy of Medicine in New York, in 1946 Consulting Editor of the "Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences". From 1950 to 1965 he was the curator of the Charles H. Land Museum of the School of Dental and Oral Surgery at Columbia University in New York. After his expulsion, Proskauer published numerous articles on the history of dentistry, including in German magazines. In 1962 his last major work was published, the "Bildgeschichte der Zahnheilkunde", which he had written together with his childhood friend Witt. He died on March 20, 1972 in New York.

From 1937 the “Reich Institute for the History of Dentistry” was headed by the system-compliant medical historian Walter Artelt (1907–1976) from the Charité in Berlin. In 1937 the "Reich Institute for the History of Dentistry" moved with its collection and library to the dentist's house in Berlin. From 1933 to 1939 said Fritz H. Witt took over the "care" of the collection and the library. In 1954, the extensive library and the collection found a new home in the newly built dentist's house in Cologne.

Works (selection)

  • The importance of the Wassermann reaction in dentistry. Thieme Verlag, Leipzig 1912;
  • The dental art of the Breslau city doctor Matthaeus Gottfried Purmann (1648–1711), dissertation. From the Department of Conservative Dentistry of the Breslau Dental Institute, Leipzig 1921;
  • Iconographia odontologica. Berlin 1926, reprint Verlag G. Olms, Hildesheim 1967;
  • Should I become a dentist-dentist? Minden i. W. 1929;
  • Pictorial history of dentistry. Testimonies from 5 millennia. M. DuMont Schauberg, Cologne 1962 (with FH Witt)

literature

Web links

Commons : Curt Proskauer  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Collection Henry & Prof. Paul Proskauer, Breslau / New York ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Canton of Schwyz. Retrieved September 22, 2016.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sz.ch
  2. ^ Willy Cohn: No right, nowhere: Breslauer Tagebücher 1933–1941; a selection . Böhlau Verlag Köln Weimar, 2008, ISBN 978-3-412-20139-5 , p. 369–.
  3. ^ Proskauer, Curt , Kulturportal West-Ost. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  4. ↑ Gisela Tascher: Status of research for a chronicle on the history of the "Proskauer / Witt Collection", the "German Dental Library" and the "Research Institute for the History of Dentistry" (PDF) , German Dental Journal , Deutscher Ärzteverlag , 2012; 67 (3). Retrieved September 22, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Proskauer, Curt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American dentist and medical historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 1972
Place of death New York City