Friedrich Daniel Erhard

Note on the grave of the physician Friedrich Daniel Erhard (1800–1879) in the chapel cemetery in Bad Kissingen.

Friedrich Daniel Erhard (born September 11, 1800 in Nördlingen , † October 15, 1879 in Bad Kissingen ) was a German forensic , district and spa doctor.

Life

He came from a beer brewing family originally based in Regensburg and grew up in Nördlingen as the son of the paymaster and tax administrator Johann Adam Erhard and Maria Catharina Stang , who had died in childbirth. He was raised by his stepmother with eight siblings. He attended Latin school in Nördlingen and decided to become a doctor in 1818 - probably encouraged by his uncle and godfather, the city ​​physician Dr. med. Friedrich Daniel Stang - and studied medicine at the Universities of Würzburg and Munich . In 1822 he completed his studies with his doctorate and in 1826 with the major state examination.

In 1827 he was court physician and personal physician in Amorbach at the court of the 3rd Prince of Leiningen . In 1851 he was honorary professor for pharmaceutical science at the University of Würzburg.

From 1853 he was a court doctor in Kissingen with an annual salary of 600 guilders and in 1862, when the district offices were separated from the judiciary and administration , he became a first class district doctor. He also worked in the spa as a royal Bavarian fountain doctor (bath doctor). In 1857 he received the title of Royal Councilor .

The liberal King Maximilian II of Bavaria wanted precise information about the living conditions, complaints and wishes of his population in order to be able to react accordingly. This resulted in instructions to the district doctors to prepare so-called physics reports (physics = health department). Erhard submitted his report in 1861. The hygienic conditions were particularly important to him and so he wrote (excerpt):

“One consequence of the great poverty ... is that ... the villagers often neglect themselves to the extreme. ... Unclean, coarse underwear, jackets made of dirty mixed material (fabrics made of wool with linen) or woolen stockings blackened by age and dirt, the whole thing permeated with the atmosphere of a stable and manure manure. .... In better places there is more cleanliness, but the sense of it is not very developed in the local population. There is no tendency to swim in the district. .... The room floors .... often not even with boards, but only covered with clay, the rooms are dark, smoky, dull, damp, so that beds, clothes and linen are covered with mold in damp, cold weather .. .. The often necessary stay of young feathered cattle and other cattle, young chickens, geese, even pigs in the rooms, which often creates the most disgusting smell in such a room in addition to filth and moisture. "

In the German War of 1866, after the Battle of Kissingen (July 10, 1866), as a civilian medical doctor, although compulsory as a district doctor, at the side of the well-known Munich doctor Prof. Dr. Johann Nepomuk von Nussbaum Bavarian as well as Prussian wounded. For his services Erhard received the Prussian Order of the Crown III in 1867 . Class. He did not receive the “Commemorative Sign for Meritorious Achievement in the War of 1866” given by the Bavarian King, despite the additional time and financial burden that often lasted for weeks, because he was paid as a district doctor by the state and his help was expected and required.

When Erhard retired in 1870, he was awarded the Knight's Cross First Class of the Order of Merit of St. Michael and an honorary doctorate from the Senate of the Würzburg University.

Erhard was married to a daughter of the Würzburg university professor Ruland , but the marriage remained childless. He bequeathed his fortune to the city in foundations for schools, students and other charitable events, whereupon the city of Kissingen granted him honorary citizenship in 1878 and named Erhardstrasse after him in 1890 . The foundation's assets were lost due to the German inflation from 1914 to 1923 and today only exist nominally as part of the “United Scholarship Foundation”.

Works

• Physics report for the district court district Kissingen. In: Werner Eberth (Ed.): Land and people in the Bad Kissingen district, 1861. Volume 4, Theresienbrunnen-Verlag, Bad Kissingen 1999. ( Online ).
• Kissingen in therapeutic relationships with special consideration for the spa conditions during the season 1859. 1860.
• Kissingen and its healing springs. 1862

literature

• Gerhard Wulz: The chapel cemetery in Bad Kissingen. A guide with short biographies. Bad Kissingen 2001, ISBN 3-934912-04-4 .
• Gerhard Wulz: Dr. Friedrich Daniel Erhard. Doctor and philanthropist. In: Saale-Zeitung of April 23, 1999 and in "Frankenland" 2001, p. 336.

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Daniel Erhard in the catalog of the German National Library