Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer
The house in Meckesheim, where Kehrer performed the first caesarean section in 1881
The grave of Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer in the Heidelberg Bergfriedhof

Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer (born February 16, 1837 in Guntersblum , † June 16, 1914 in Heidelberg ) was a German gynecologist . In 1881 he founded the modern caesarean section and in 1882, at the same time as Max Sänger , introduced double uterine sutures for caesarean sections.

Life

Kehrer's father was a country doctor, his mother the daughter of a pharmacist. After attending elementary school in his home community in Rheinhessen , he attended a grammar school in Worms from 1847 and later studied medicine in Giessen , Munich and Vienna .

In 1860 he received his doctorate in Giessen on the subject of "Births in the position of the skull with the back of the head pointing backwards". After initially working as a general practitioner in Gießen, he completed his habilitation in obstetrics in 1864 and was appointed associate professor in 1868. From 1871 to 1881, Kehrer was full professor (1872) of obstetrics and director of the Giessen Women's Clinic. In 1881 he was offered a chair for gynecology at the University of Heidelberg and later also became dean of the medical faculty there. Kehrer was also the first full professor of obstetrics in Heidelberg. There he pushed through the construction of the new maternity hospital in the Bergheim Clinic, which was built in 1883.

In 1897, Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer was the first German to successfully render a woman sterile by closing the fallopian tubes (tubes). He is one of the pioneers of tube sterilization, a surgical procedure which, despite its disadvantages - it causes permanent infertility - is the most widely used method of contraception worldwide and thus an essential element of individual family planning. Kehrer reported on the procedure carried out at the Heidelberg University Hospital in the Centralblatt für Gynäkologie . He had performed the tube sterilization on a 27-year-old woman who already had 6 children who were "rachitic, idiotic and in part afflicted with enuresis (bed-wetting)". The birth process was complicated for all of them, and Kehrer had stopped another pregnancy in the fourth month due to the mother's steady weight loss. The sterilization had been carried out at the request of the couple and in consultation with the family doctor, since "the offspring were sick, sometimes even stupid" and "as a doctor has a duty to take care of a wife for a husband and children in need" in 1898 Kehrer successfully carried out another tube sterilization "because of serious maniacal accidents with child murder attempts that occurred in all pregnancies". Both tube sterilizations were medically justified insofar as the aim was to maintain the health of two women because they were needed for the care of the children or that Children's lives were at risk from their illness.

In the debate about the prerequisites for performing tube sterilization, sparked by his interventions at the beginning of the 20th century, Kehrer demanded - a consistent, preferably written declaration from both spouses about their consent to the induction of permanent infertility - the written consent of the family doctor and an experienced gynecologist and Obstetrician - that all other means of contraception should have been used in vain beforehand - that the woman concerned should usually have several living children. At that time, the medical reasons for sterilization were exhaustion, caused by poor nutrition or anemia, epilepsy, severe psychosis and heart disease, and tuberculosis. In the case of nerve diseases that were associated with significant physical impairments and which were - in some cases rightly - assumed to be inherited, there were also eugenic reasons, although it was also assumed that these would be of no practical importance due to the rarity of the most serious hereditary defects. During the First World War and in the Weimar Republic, eugenic and demographic reasons combined with the demand for forced sterilization came increasingly to the fore

With his wife Emmy (1849–1924), the daughter of the animal painter Friedrich Frisch , Kehrer had four children, including the later art historian Hugo Kehrer . Another son, Erwin Kehrer, was like him a gynecologist and headed the Marburg University Women's Clinic until he was forced to retire in 1939.

Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer rests in the family grave at the Bergfriedhof Heidelberg , (Dept. T). The tombstone is a granite boulder with a tabular field in the middle. The names of the other family members who rest here are recorded on deckchairs.

Services

Kehrer is known for his pioneering caesarean section method, in which the uterus is not cut open from top to bottom, as was customary up to then, but transversely and closed again after delivery by suturing the muscles and peritoneum cover. This conservative classical caesarean operation called method turned sweeper for the first time on 25 September 1881 in Meckenheim in the 28-year-old Emelie losing, which previously had three children brought naturally to the world, although they were all died in their first year. Assisted by two surgeons, a general practitioner (Dr. med. Schütz from Neckargemünd ) and the Walldürner midwife Maria Zeeb , he carried out the one-hour operation. The mother and child were well after the operation and both reached old age. Even today, in Prof.-Kehrer-Strasse in Meckesheim (previously Mandelgasse) named after him, an inscription on the house of this birth operation reminds of the great pioneering achievement.

In 1882 he published a method of double uterine suturing after the caesarean section that he had developed, as was Max Sänger at the same time, and which made caesarean section safer. The caesarean section method of the gynecology professor reduced maternal mortality from 60–70% with the old caesarean section method to below 1% and is now used worldwide in the modification according to Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel , in which the abdominal wall is also opened by a horizontal incision .

The child later had 13 children, 19 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren.

Awards

Street sign for Prof.-FA-Kehrer-Straße in Guntersblum
  • 1887 Knight of the Zähringer Order of Lions
  • 1889 Councilor
  • 1894 Privy Councilor
  • 1899 Commander of the Zähringer Order of Lions
  • 1902 Privy Council 2nd class
  • In his hometown Guntersblum and in Meckesheim a street called Prof.-FA-Kehrer-Straße was named after him.

literature

  • Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1803-1932. Springer, Berlin et al. 1986, ISBN 3-540-15856-1 .
  • Bernd Ellwanger, Edith Wolber ( sister school of Heidelberg University ): Professional and private vita of Professor Kehrers. In: Meckesheim and his epochal Caesarean section from 1881. Documentation of all scientific facts about a brilliant surgical achievement that established a great moment in medicine for mankind 130 years ago (= series of publications on the local history of Meckesheim. 3). Meckesheim Municipality, Meckesheim 2011, pp. 30–40.
  • : Clinic Ticker, the online employee magazine of the University Hospital Heidelberg "One room, 21 1/2 feet long and 18 feet wide." A journey through the 250-year history of midwifery school in Heidelberg , December 16, 2016 expedition 250 years midwifery school retrieved on December 29, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ferdinand Adolph Kehrer: The births in skull positions with the back of the head. Medical dissertation. Giessen 1859, ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Peter Schneck: Kehrer, Ferdinand Adolph. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 731.
  3. ^ Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer: Textbook of operative obstetrics. Enke, Stuttgart 1891, ( digitized version ).
  4. ↑ Leena Ruuskanen: The Heidelberg Bergfriedhof through the ages (= series of publications by the Heidelberg City Archives. Special publication. 18). Verlag Regionalkultur, Ubstadt-Weiher et al. 2008, ISBN 978-3-89735-518-7 , p. 49.
  5. ↑ Trends in Contraceptive Use Worldwide 2015. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs - Population Division, New York NY 2015, ISBN 978-92-1-057775-5 , p. 25, ( digitized ).
  6. ↑ Wolfgang U. Eckart : Political "seizure of power" and medical science: The law to prevent hereditary offspring from July 14, 1933. In: Christoph Gradmann , Oliver von Mengersen (ed.): The end of the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist seizure of power. Lectures by Heidelberg historians in the Reich President Friedrich Ebert Memorial. Manutius, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-925678-48-4 , pp. 153-182, here pp. 155-156.
  7. ↑ Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer: Sterilization by cutting through the tube after cutting the anterior vagina. In: Centralblatt für Gynäkologie. Vol. 21, No. 31, 1897, ZDB -ID 200948-1 , pp. 261-265.
  8. ↑ Ferdinand Adolf Kehrer: Annual report from the Heidelberg women's clinic 1899. In: Medical communications from and for Baden. Vol. 54, No. 15, 1900, ZDB -ID 502533-3 , p. 3.
  9. ^ Operative sterilization of women. In: Krönig- Döderlein : Operative Gynecology. 4th edition. Georg Thieme, Leipzig 1921, pp. 376–381 .
  10. ^ A b Operative sterilization of women. In: Krönig-Döderlein: Operative Gynecology. 4th edition. Georg Thieme, Leipzig 1921, pp. 377–381 .
  11. ↑ Winter, in: Operative Sterilisierung des Weibes. In: Krönig-Döderlein: Operative Gynecology. 4th edition. Georg Thieme, Leipzig 1921, p. 378 .
  12. ↑ See Susanne Doetz: Everyday life and practice of forced sterilization. The Berlin University Women's Clinic under Walter Stoeckel 1942–1944. Dissertation. Medical Faculty Charité University Medicine Berlin. Berlin 2010, pp. 25–26.
  13. ^ Karin Wittneben : Maria Zeeb. In: Horst-Peter Wolff (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon zur care history. Who was who in nursing history. Volume 3. Elsevier, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-437-26671-3 , p. 304.
  14. ↑ Ferdinand Adolph Kehrer: About a modified procedure for caesarean section. In: Archives for Gynecology. Volume 19, 1882, pp. 177-205.
  15. ↑ Peter Schneck: Kehrer, Ferdinand Adolph. 2005, p. 731.
  16. ↑ Martina Lenzen-Schulte: How the caesarean section became a classic. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 2, 2014, p. N2.
  17. ↑ Johannes Pfannenstiel : On the advantages of the suprasymphyseal fascia cross-section for gynecological coliotomies, at the same time a contribution to the indication of the surgical methods. In: Collection of Clinical Lectures. New episode 268 = collection of clinical lectures, gynecology. New episode 97, ZDB -ID 500207-2 , 1900, pp. 1735-1756, PMID 4589293 .
  18. ↑ Arne Jensen: Hermann Johannes Pfannenstiel (1862-1909). On the 80th anniversary of death. Biography of a great German gynecologist. In: Obstetrics and gynecology. Vol. 50, No. 4, 1990, pp. 326-334, doi : 10.1055 / s-2007-1026488 .
personal data
SURNAME Kehrer, Ferdinand Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kehrer, Ferdinand Adolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gynecologist and inventor of the modern caesarean section
DATE OF BIRTH February 16, 1837
PLACE OF BIRTH Guntersblum
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1914
Place of death Heidelberg