Ernst Pohl (medical technician)

Ernst Pohl (born December 12, 1876 in Stralsund , † November 2, 1962 in Kiel ) was a German orthopedic technician and medical technology inventor.

Life

As the third of eight children, Pohl began a commercial apprenticeship in 1891. The Greifswald surgeon Heinrich Helferich noticed it through a hand-carved foot insert .

When Helferich was appointed to Christian Albrechts University in 1899 , he took Pohl with him to Kiel and entrusted him with the management of the "Medico-Mechanicum", an orthopedic practice room. In 1902, the technical self-taught Pohl founded a company for medical and surgical instruments, initially with master Jungnickel as a partner who was necessary for the craft business. From 1904 Pohl was able to rename the company to Ernst Pohl, Kiel. At the beginning, one focus of his company was X-ray technology, on which he worked with the Kiel professor for radiology, Hans Meyer. The main aim was to reduce the physical strain on the patient and the technology. This is how the rotating anode tube patented by Pohl in 1937 was created. Some of his patents were not used in his own devices, but were bought up by other companies, so there were contracts with Sanitas and Siemens. Pohl held around 150 patents for his developments of X-ray machines, surgical devices and implants . The omniscope developed in the 1920s became a global success. On December 12, 1947, the Medical Faculty of Christian Albrechts University awarded him the title of Dr. med. hc

In 1923 the later inventor of the medical C-arm , Hugo Rost , started his apprenticeship, who founded the companies Hugo Rost and Nagel & Goller in 1947.

Beck's transfusion apparatus (blood mill) by Ernst Pohl.

The blood transfusion pump manufactured by Pohl, which was also called Becksche Blutmühle after the Kiel surgeon A. Beck, was also widely used. Its pumping principle can still be found in dialysis machines today.

Since the late 1930s, Pohl was also the right hand man of Gerhard Küntscher , whose ideas he congenially implemented and inspired. To Küntscher's enthusiasm, in 1957 he provided him with the first flexible medullary canal drill and the electric universal machine (Lentodrill, 1951). Küntscher thanked “the brilliant developer and manufacturer of intramedullary nailing tools” in numerous publications. Shortly thereafter, however, their friendship was tarnished by the rising competition from Ortopedia. This was founded in 1955 by Pohl's former secretary. This Kiel company, which is mainly known for wheelchairs, also manufactured intramedullary nails and accessories between 1962 and 1979. In contrast to Pohl, Ortopedia paid royalties to Küntscher. Therefore, since 1962 he has exclusively mentioned Ortopedia as "best manufacturer" in his publications. This becomes particularly clear in the revision of his work "The Practice of Marrow Nailing".

The third member of this long-standing collegial friendship was the surgeon Richard Maatz , who introduced spring osteosynthesis in 1951. His cancellous spring can be found as a metal drain pipe in a patent by Pohl. The conical intramedullary nails and expansion nails, which were supposed to ensure the form fit in the medullary canal, which is important for Maatz, were of course also manufactured by Pohl.

The sliding screw principle developed by Pohl (1951) is still of central importance in the surgical treatment of fractures . The dynamic hip screw (DHS) goes back to Pohl's tab screw.

Ernst Pohl died shortly before the age of 86 on Hospitalstrasse in his beloved barrack next to the Kiel surgery, which was both his place of work and residence.

After Ernst Pohl's death, his company was sold to Austenal, which belonged to the Pfitzer Group. The company headquarters moved to Kiel-Dietrichsdorf and two nephews of Pohl took over management. In the 1970s the name was changed to Howmedica and the company moved again to Schönkirchen. Today a part of the Stryker group still produces intramedullary nails and other osteosynthesis products here and is committed to preserving the memory of Ernst Pohl and Gerhard Küntscher.

Honors

• Dr. med. hc from Christian Albrechts University (1947)
• Corresponding member of the German Radiological Society
• First honorary master of German craft 1947

literature

• Gerhard Breske: 90 years Howmedica, 1994
• Gerhard Küntscher: practice of intramedullary nailing. Facsimile edition of the unfinished 2nd edition from 1972 consisting of the 1st edition 1962 with handwritten corrections. Published by Karger 1986, Ed .: K. Klemm
• Richard Maatz et al: The intramedullary nailing and other intramedullary osteosynthesis, 1986 (at the end of the historical summary by Maatz)
• Fritz Povacz: History of trauma surgery , 2nd edition. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 2007 digitized
• Steve Webb: From the Watching of Shadows. the origins of radiological tomography, 1990
• Through marrow and bone - On the history of intramedullary nailing Brochure accompanying a traveling exhibition of the Medical and Pharmaceutical History Collection of the Univ. Keel; largely adopted as a press release (PM) Through marrow and bone - About the pioneers of marrow nailing by Schleswig-Holsteinisches Ärzteblatt 5/2010, pp. 32–35

Other sources

• Patents from Pohl as "inventor" and "applicant" and from Ortopedia (applicant and inventor there are Küntscher or their own engineers) can be researched at https://depatisnet.dpma.de/ (German Patent Office)
• The London Science Museum's omniscope was part of a globally traveling exhibition on modernism
• Further omniscopes and X-ray machines from Pohl can be found in the X-ray Museum in Remscheid
• The Kiel Medical and Pharmaceutical History Collection has large stocks of Pohl's surgical instruments, but they are rarely exhibited; For some, however, images and entries in the object database can be viewed via the museen-sh.de portal. From March 28 to October 3, 2010, the traveling exhibition Through Mark and Bones was shown there (almost at home) , which had its premiere at the DGOU Congress 2009 in Berlin. Further stations are still being planned.

Web links

• Stryker Osteosynthesis: Company history of the Pohl company ( Memento from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hugo Rost history. In: www.hugo-rost.de. Hugo Rost GmbH, accessed on March 19, 2020 (German). 
2. ↑ The first sketches of the feather nail can be found in: R. Döhler , R. Feeser: The Helix Wire in proximal humeral fractures . Osteosynthesis International 8 (2000), pp. 224-227.
3. ↑ Patent 918531 (1958)