Franz Joseph von Besnard

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Coat of arms Franz Joseph von Besnard

Franz Joseph Besnard , from 1813 Knight von Besnard , (born May 20, 1749 in Buchsweiler , Alsace , † June 16, 1814 in Munich ) was an ennobled physician and personal physician to the Bavarian King Max I. Joseph .

origin

He came from Buchsweiler in Alsace , at that time the seat of government of the Hanau-Lichtenberg county, which was under French sovereignty . His parents were Dominik Andreas Besnard, the Hesse-Darmstadt bailiff in Buchsweiler, and his wife Monika geb. Eisenwenger. The family belonged to the Catholic Confession.

Life

Franz Joseph von Besnard attended the Jesuit College in Hagenau and then studied philosophy and medicine and surgery for five years at the University of Strasbourg . He then practiced as a doctor, partly in Buchsweiler and partly in Strasbourg .

In 1775, when he was just getting his doctorate , Cardinal Louis César Constantin de Rohan-Guéméné offered him the vacancy of a physicist in Zabern . At the same time, Count Palatine Maximilian Joseph , who later became King of Bavaria, who was a French officer in Strasbourg, tried to get him. In 1778 he hired Franz Joseph Besnard as personal physician, paid him a handsome salary and gave him the character of a councilor .

Besnard cured the Wittelsbacher several times from dangerous illnesses and also took care of the delivery of his son Ludwig, who later became King Ludwig I of Bavaria, in Strasbourg . A very intimate relationship developed between the Count Palatine and his doctor.

Max Joseph left France because of the revolution in 1790, with Besnard accompanying him. They came to Mannheim via Zweibrücken . Here the medic worked among the population of the city and the surrounding area. In 1797 the Count Palatinate wrote to him from Berlin : “I already owe you, dear Besnard, my life three times, now you have saved my son's too. How can I repay such a thing? [...] if the most intimate recognition and a friendship that is full of experimentation can do something, you must not wish anything more. "

After Max Joseph assumed the government of Bavaria as elector (from 1806 as king) in 1799, he took Franz Joseph Besnard with him to Munich .

In addition, he became a real secret councilor and medical director general, as well as general inspector of all military hospitals and military hospitals. In 1808 he was promoted to director of the Munich Medicinal Committee , making him the capital's chief physician. In 1808 Besnard also received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown , combined with the personal nobility, in 1813 the king raised him to the hereditary knighthood of the kingdom.

Franz Joseph von Besnard was married to Magdalena geb. She and Schulz had several children. The son Franz Anton von Besnard (1796–1854), a Bavarian officer, later also worked as a Catholic theological writer.

Medical work

Title page of the treatise on the treatment of syphilis, 1811

Through his work among the Strasbourg military, the physician dealt early on with the effects and treatment methods of syphilis . In particular, he objected to the administration of mercury , since he had recognized that it was highly poisonous and caused considerable harm to the sick. As early as 1783 he submitted a treatise on the nature and reproduction of the lust epidemic to the royal academy in Paris , along with a suggestion on how to treat it without mercury. Thereupon he received the government order to carry out practical experiments with his new healing method in the French military hospitals. However, the revolutionary events did not allow this work to be completed. In Bavaria, Besnard researched further in this regard, developed new treatment methods and published in 1811, with the support of King Max Joseph, the text "Serious, experience-based warnings to the friends of mankind against the use of mercury in venereal diseases" . Besnard was also a pioneer for the introduction of the cowpox vaccination .

The Bavarian Academy of Sciences made the doctor an honorary member in 1808.

His successor as personal physician to the Bavarian King Max I Joseph was the physician Bernhard Joseph von Hartz .

Brothers

The older brother Heinrich Besnard (1745-1806) advanced to the ducal Palatinate-Zweibrücken privy councilor and was raised to the hereditary nobility of a noble by Emperor Joseph II , zu Przemyśl , on July 1, 1783 . On January 18, 1786, the monarch gave him the addition of Edler von Schlangenheim . Since then, this family line has called itself by its full name "von Besnard, Edle von Schlangenheim ". Heinrich von Besnard served as mayor and sub-prefect in Zweibrücken during the French period of the Rhine Palatinate .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Schärl: The composition of the Bavarian civil service from 1806 to 1918. Volume 1 of: Munich Historical Studies, Munich 1955, page 278; (Detail scan)
  2. Jump up ↑ Joseph Heinrich Wolf: Ludwig I, King of Bavaria: Allerhöchst-Dessen Leben and Work from 1786 to 1841. Augsburg 1841, p. 14; (Digital scan)
  3. ↑ Friedrich Wilhelm Bruckbräu : Character traits and anecdotes as images of kindness and charity from the life of Maximilian Joseph I, King of Bavaria. Books on Demand, 2013, ISBN 9783846046319 , p. 107 (reprint, first edition by Fleischmann, Munich 1827; 2nd edition, Fleischmann, Munich 1856); (Digital scan)
  4. ↑ August Hirsch:  Besnard, Franz Josef von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 555 f.
  5. ↑ Joachim Heinrich Jäck: Most important life moments of all royal. Bavarian civil and military servants of this century. Volume 3, Augsburg 1819, p. 11; (Digital scan)
  6. ^ Karl Heinrich von Lang: Book of the nobility of the Kingdom of Baiern. Grundwerk, Volume 1, Munich, 1815, p. 294; (Digital scan)
  7. ^ Carl Ruland:  Besnard, Franz Anton von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 556.
  8. ↑ (digital scan of the treatise)
  9. ↑ Member entry by Franz Joseph von Besnard at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 3, 2017.
  10. ↑ Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch der noble houses. Volume 19, 1894, pp. 49-51; (Detail scans)
  11. ^ Robert Schmitt: Simon Joseph (Gabriel) Schmitt, 1766–1855: monk of the Enlightenment period, French functionary, German civil servant, lecturer in philosophy and landowner. 1966, p. 108; (Detail scan)
  12. ^ Helmut G. Haasis: Dawn of the Republic: the German democrats on the left bank of the Rhine 1789–1849. Volume 35199 by Ullstein materials, Ullstein Verlag, 1984, ISBN 3548351999 , p. 206; (Detail scan)
personal data
SURNAME Besnard, Franz Joseph von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Besnard, Franz Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Physician, personal physician to the King of Bavaria
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Buchsweiler
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1814
Place of death Munich