Erich Lexer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erich Lexer (born May 22, 1867 in Freiburg im Breisgau , † December 4, 1937 in Berlin ) was a German surgeon and university professor . With Jacques Joseph , he is considered the founder of plastic surgery .

Career

Lexer was the son of Germanist Matthias Lexer and attended the old grammar school in Würzburg . After graduating from high school in 1885, he studied human medicine at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg until 1890 . During his studies he became a member of the Academic Choral Society Würzburg in the Sondershäuser Association . After graduating, he worked for two years as an assistant to the anatomist Friedrich Merkel at the Georg-August University in Göttingen , where in 1891 he also received a six-month course in pathological anatomy . From 1892 to 1905 he was an assistant doctor to Ernst von Bergmann at the II. Surgical Clinic of the Charité in Berlin, where he completed his habilitation . As an associate professor, he headed the surgical polyclinic there from 1902. In 1905 he followed the call of the Albertus University in Königsberg to the chair of surgery. In 1910 he moved to the University of Jena . When the First World War broke out in 1914, he joined the Imperial Navy as a senior staff doctor and was a consultant doctor for the Navy in Hamburg , Bruges and Ostend until the end of the war . On August 10, 1915, he was promoted to senior physician general in the reserve.

In 1919 he went to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg as full professor and clinic director . There was Rudolf Theis Eden his deputy. In 1928 he followed his fourth call to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. At the age of 69 years emeritus , in 1936 he was chief of surgery at the Schwabing Hospital . The following year he died of a heart attack in a phone booth in Berlin. He was buried in the family grave in Munich's north cemetery.

One of his students was the surgeon Hans Killian , who was motivated to practice surgery by Lexer's art.

In 1923 and 1936 he was President of the German Society for Surgery . Since mid-1933 Lexer was a " supporting member of the SS " and was appointed SS-Sturmbannführer by Heinrich Himmler in February 1936 and SS-Obersturmbannführer in November of the same year .

Title page by: Arthur Gütt / Ernst Rüdin / Falk Ruttke : Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases Offspring of July 14, 1933. Munich 1934; with the indication of the contribution by Erich Lexer: The interventions to render men sterile and emasculate .

Lexer was one of the commentators on the National Socialist Sterilization Act and wrote the article The interventions for the sterility of men and emasculation .

Services

Lexer first reported on his facial tightening method in 1906. Since then, refinements and improvements to this technique have been continuously developed. The cut was S-shaped and ran within the hairline along the temple. This cut shows a great deal of similarity with the cut of today's standard facelift .

In Freiburg, Lexer further developed the methods and techniques of plastic and reconstructive surgery he had learned in Jena and above all in Königsberg. In particular, he devoted himself to the reconstruction of the nose, ear, mouth and jaw, the mammoplasties and their modifications as well as the facial sculptures and cleft palate operations .

The modified current surgical methods for the treatment of breast hyperplasia can also be traced back to Lexer . Many current techniques are based on the principle of surgery known as Lexer-Kraske in 1922 . The vertical reduction plastic with good results, which, according to a technique by Lejour, saves the patient the incision and thus the subsequent scar in the submammary fold, is based on Lexer's basic principle.

Honors

Street renaming

A street named after Erich Lexer in Freiburg since 1972 is to be renamed Wilhelm-von-Möllendorff-Straße following the recommendation of a commission of experts to review the Freiburg street names . The reason given by the commission was Lexer's considerable involvement in the forced sterilization measures of the Nazi racial hygiene program since 1933/34, which affected 1,050 people under his responsibility as head of the Munich clinic. With his technical article on "The interventions for sterility of men and for emasculation" to the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases" he "went beyond a mere commitment to the racial ideology of the National Socialists". In contrast, there were several lawsuits that the Freiburg Administrative Court dismissed at the beginning of 2020. An appeal to the Administrative Court is possible against the judgment. In the run-up to the municipal council decision at the beginning of March 2020, the AfD distributed leaflets in the streets and paths affected, which should prevent the renaming.

Publications (selection)

  • General surgery textbook for use by doctors and students. 2 volumes. Stuttgart 1904; 21st edition, edited by Eduard Rehn , ibid 1947 and 1952.
  • History and construction of the surgical university clinic in Jena . Leipzig 1919
  • Manual of Practical Surgery , 1931
  • The entire reconstructive surgery , 2 vols. Leipzig 1931
  • The interventions for sterility of men and for emasculation. In: Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseased Offspring together with the ordinance of December 5, 1933 on the implementation of the law, excerpt from the law against dangerous habitual criminals and on measures of security and reform of November 24, 1933. 2nd edition. J. F. Lehmanns Verlag , Munich 1936.
  • with Heinrich Eymer : Termination of pregnancy and sterility in the case of surgical diseases. In: Reichsärztekammer (Hrsg.): Guidelines for termination of pregnancy and sterility for health reasons. Edited by Hans Stadler. J. F. Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1936, pp. 131-135.

literature

  • Ellen Magdalena Dittmann: The surgeon Erich Lexer (1867-1937) . Dissertation, University of Göttingen 2003. Modified version, edited by Georg Lexer and Arnulf Thiede: Kaden Verlag, Heidelberg 2007 Reading sample from the publisher (PDF; 606 kB)
  • Hans Killian : Master of surgery and the surgeon schools in the entire German-speaking area. 2nd edition Stuttgart 1980, pp. 174-176.
  • Martin H. Kirschner: Surgery is craft, science and art. In memory of E. Lexer on his 125th birthday on May 22, 1992. In: Chirurg BDC. Volume 31, 1992, p. 220 f.
  • Eugen Kuner: Opening of the Erich Lexer Memorial Exhibition. Hefte zur Unfallheilkunde, 200 (1988), pp. 32–33. Berlin 1988
  • Günter Lob:  Lexer, Erich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 420 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Wolfgang G. Locher: Lexer, Erich. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 848.
  • Hans May: Erich Lexer, a Biographical Sketch. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 29 (1962), pp. 140-152
  • Hans May: The Bibliography of Erich Lexer's Scientific Work. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery 30 (1962), pp. 670-675
  • Helmuth Nathan: Erich Lexer (1867-1937) . Medical World 24 (1973), pp. 2088-2090
  • U. Paul: The Surgical Legacy - Erich Lexer. Zentralblatt für Chirurgie 102 (1977), pp. 571-573
  • Arnulf Thiede : The surgeon Erich Lexer (1867-1937) . Heidelberg 2007

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Otto Grübel, Special Houses Association of German Student Choral Societies (SV): Cartel address book. As of March 1, 1914. Munich 1914, p. 48.
  2. ↑ Wolfgang G. Locher (2005), p. 848.
  3. ↑ a b Karl Philipp Berendt: The war surgery from 1939-1945 from the point of view of the advisory surgeons of the German army in the Second World War . Med. Diss. Freiburg 2003 ( digitized version at the University of Freiburg; PDF, 2.3 MB), note 454, p. 172.
  4. ↑ AIOD-aktuell (2015), accessed on February 24, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Hans Killian: There is only God behind us. Sub umbra dei. A surgeon remembers. Kindler, Munich 1957; here: Licensed edition as Herder paperback (= Herder library. Volume 279). Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-451-01779-2 , pp. 19-25.
  6. ↑ a b Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2nd updated edition Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-16048-8 , p. 370.
  7. ↑ Erich Lexer Clinic Freiburg. Retrieved March 18, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Detail page additional module street names - www.freiburg.de - culture and leisure / town history / street names. Retrieved March 2, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Frank Zimmermann: The surgeon Erich Lexer was a doctor in the service of the Nazi regime. Badische Zeitung, November 3, 2016, accessed on March 2, 2020 .
  10. ↑ BZ editorial office: Lexerstraße in Freiburg-Betzenhausen may be renamed. Badische Zeitung, February 28, 2020, accessed on March 2, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Lexer, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German surgeon and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Freiburg in Breisgau
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 1937
Place of death Berlin